Privacy policy

We are Homevest Limited, registered with company number 13802806 and a registered office at Regus Offices, 167 City Road, London, Greater London, United Kingdom, EC1V 1AW.

If you have any questions about this policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please email us at [email protected].

This policy was last updated on 1 November 2022.

When does this policy apply?

This policy applies whenever you visit our website www.homevest.io, contact us or otherwise engage with us.

If we collect data about you as part of providing identity checks our customers ask us to, we do this in our capacity as a data processor for our customer. This means you should speak to our customer (such as your mortgage provider or estate agent) if you have any questions about how your data is used by them.

We act as a data controller in the circumstances set out below, and to comply with laws covering anti-money laundering, financial reporting, and responding to and protecting against legal claims.

How do you use my data?

  • When you create an account we will collect your name, email address, phone number, address, nationality, country of residence, property ownership status, employment status, term of employment, income (together with your partner's income) and savings. We collect this information to take steps to confirm your eligibility for our services and to enter into a contract with you for the use of our services.

  • When you apply for a mortgage we will ask you to provide all the information above (When you create an account), and when you apply for a mortgage as a joint application with your partner we will also ask you to provide this information for any partner. We will also collect your and your partner's (if applicable) name, any previous names, marital status, date of birth, gender, citizenship, employment history, address history, bank account details, card payment details, credit history and financial commitments. We collect this information to take steps to confirm your eligibility for our services and to enter into a contract with you for the use of our services, or to facilitate an introduction to one of our partner banks. With your explicit consent, we also collect your and your partner's (if applicable) health information, proof of identity (such as a driving licence or passport) and information about any criminal offences or convictions which we may also use to enter into a contract with you for the use of our services, or to facilitate an introduction to one of our partner banks.

  • When you sign up to receive our updates we will handle your personal information (such as your name and email address) to provide you with our news updates in line with any preferences you have told us about. When we send you our news updates because you have opted-in to receive them, we rely on your consent to contact you.

  • You can unsubscribe from our updates at any time by responding to any email you receive from us to tell us you wish to unsubscribe or by emailing [email protected].

  • When you contact us either by phone, email, via our 'contact us' page or via social media, we will usually collect your name, social media handle and contact details, because it’s in our legitimate interest to make sure we can properly respond to your query.

  • When you use our website and consent to our use of cookies we will collect information about how you use our website. We use this information to improve our website and to better understand how people use it. More detail on the information we collect and how we do this is set out in our Cookie Policy below.

  • When you attend one of our events or a third-party event we also attend (including virtual events via video conferencing providers including Zoom), we will usually collect your name, address, email address and phone number. We collect this information because it’s in our legitimate interests to promote our business and to know who’s attending our events.

  • Where you enter a competition we are running we will collect your name, email address and any other personal data that forms a part of the competition entry (this may differ depending on the competition). We do this under our legitimate interest to run our competitions effectively and to award the prizes to the winner.

  • When you apply for a job with us we may collect your name, contact details, recruitment information (e.g. right to work documentation and references), test results (inc. psychometric), qualifications, accreditations and any additional information we may receive from our recruitment partners.

    We will use your personal information to assess your suitability for our available roles. We do this to perform our contract obligations or to take steps at your request, before entering into a contract. Where we process your right to work documentation, we will do so to comply with our legal obligations.

  • If our business is sold. We process your personal information for this purpose because we have a legitimate interest to ensure our business can be continued by the buyer. If you object to our use of your personal information in this way, the buyer of our business may not be able to provide services to you.

Who do you share my data with?

  • Business partners, suppliers and subcontractors.
    We may share your data for the performance of the contract we enter into with them or you, for example IT providers and legal and accounting firms.

  • Mortgage lenders.
    We may share your data with lenders to make a mortgage application on your behalf. Mortgage lenders will look after your data according to their own privacy policy. You must read your lender’s privacy policy for information on how they use your data.

  • Mortgage brokers.
    If you apply for a mortgage with us in Spain, your application will be handled by Hoteland, the holder of the mortgage credit intermediation license issued by the Bank of Spain No. D797. Read more here.
    If you apply for a mortgage with us in Romania, your application will be handled by Realmedia Credit S.R.L, the holder of the mortgage credit intermediation license issued by ANPC No. 450 in the Romanian Mortgage Brokers Registry. Read more here.

  • Solicitors, conveyancers, surveyors, valuers, panel managers (companies that lenders use to outsource legal work for them) and mortgage clubs (companies that connect brokers and lenders together).
    We may share your data with these parties to facilitate your mortgage or home buying process.

  • Fraud prevention agencies.
    We’ll use these providers to check your identity when you apply for a mortgage, and on an ongoing basis, for example if you re-mortgage with us or our partners.

  • Credit reference agencies (CRAs) such as Experian to facilitate background and credit checks required before you can apply for a mortgage. They or we may also access other publicly available sources such as Companies House and the Electoral Register to carry out these checks.

  • Promotional events and marketing organisations, we do not sell data for marketing purposes, but may share your data with an event organiser or collaboration brand. We will always tell you before (usually on the event registration form) and you will be given the chance to opt-out before we do this.

  • Regulators/ Authorities/ Enforcement Agencies if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our clients or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection.

  • Prospective buyers of our business under our legitimate interest to ensure our business can be continued by the buyer.

Do you use automated decision making?

Automated decision making is when companies use computers to make decisions without humans being involved. For example, a bank might use it to approve an online loan.

We currently don’t do this at Homevest. But we wanted to make you aware of it, because some of the companies involved in your mortgage or home-buying process might. As above, you must read their privacy policies for more information about how third parties use your data.

Where do you store my data?

We store your data on our servers which are based in the EU. When working with third parties we may need to transfer your personal data outside of the UK and / or EU.

Whenever we transfer your personal information outside of the UK and the EU, we ensure it receives additional protection as required by law. To keep this policy as short and easy to understand as possible, we haven’t set out the specific circumstances when each of these protection measures are used. You can contact us at [email protected] for more detail on this.

How long do you keep my data for?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as we need it unless we are required to keep it for longer to comply with our legal, accounting or regulatory requirements.

Here’s a more detailed breakdown:

  • If you submit a mortgage application through us and your application is unsuccessful, we may keep your data for up to 6 years.

  • If you obtain a mortgage through us, we may keep your data for the term of the mortgage and for up to 6 years after that. This helps us talk to you about your mortgage, including re-mortgaging in the future.

  • If you open an account with us, and do not apply for a mortgage, we may keep your data for 6 years. This is so that we can help you get ready for your application and apply for it when you’re ready.

  • In some circumstances we may carefully anonymise your personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you, and we may use this anonymised information indefinitely without notifying you. We use this anonymised information to improve the way we work and our services.

What are my rights under data protection law?

You have various other rights under applicable data protection laws, including the right to:

  • access your personal data (also known as a “subject access request”);

  • correct incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you;

  • ask us to erase the personal data we hold about you;

  • ask us to restrict our handling of your personal data;

  • ask us to transfer your personal data to a third party;

  • object to how we are using your personal data; and

  • withdraw your consent to us handling your personal data.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with us or the Information Commissioner's Office, the supervisory authority for data protection issues in England and Wales. We’re registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) with registration number ZB293555. If you are based in the EU you can find your relevant supervisory authority here.

Please keep in mind that privacy law is complicated, and these rights will not always be available to you all of the time.

Cookie policy

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also helps us make improvements.

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or in your device's storage. We only use (and store) non-essential cookies if you provide your consent.

Cookie Purpose Duration More Information
Google Analytics This cookie allows us to store information on how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data includes the number of visitors, where they came from, and the pages visited in an anonymous form. 1 day Google Analytics
Google Ads We cookie allows us to assign a unique ID number to a returning user’s device. This unique ID number is used for targeting advertisements to the user. The retention period will be between 2 weeks and 90 days depending on the type of cookie used. Google Ads
HotJar This cookie lets us identify which users have been randomly selected to take part in a sample to monitor those users’ behaviour on our site. 1 year HotJar

You will see a banner on our website before we store a cookie on your device which describes the types of cookies we use and the information they collect where you can consent to or reject the use of cookies.

Romania

Sharing data with the mortgage brokerage license holder

If you seek to buy a property in Romania and you share personal data with us, we are obliged to disclose your data with the mortgage brokerage license holder which is a Romanian company.

Read REAL MEDIA CREDIT S.R.L. data privacy policy.