Privacy Policy

beforeyoubuy.house is operated by Huwco Works LTD of 124 City Road, London EC1V 2NX (we, us). For the purposes of UK data protection law, we are the data controller for the personal information described in this policy. You can contact us at any time at hello@beforeyoubuy.house.

We collect the following categories of information when you use the website:

• Account and contact information: your email address and authentication details when you create an account or sign in, and any email address you give us for newsletter updates.
• Property addresses and searches: the UK property addresses you search for and the reports you unlock, so you can return to them later and so we can improve search relevance.
• Purchase information: the report bundle you bought, the amount paid, and a payment reference. Card details are handled entirely by Stripe and never reach our servers or database.
• Feedback you choose to send: any comment or rating you submit through the feedback form, and the page context you were viewing when you sent it.
• Technical usage data: basic information such as your browser type, device, and how you found the website, collected through privacy-respecting analytics.

We use only the cookies and local storage necessary to keep you signed in and to operate checkout. We do not use advertising cookies or third-party tracking cookies for advertising purposes. Analytics cookies, where used, are limited to aggregated, privacy-respecting measurements of how the website is used.

We use the information we collect to:

• create and manage your account and keep you signed in securely;
• generate the property reports you request and let you return to them;
• take payment and record which reports you have purchased;
• send you service and product emails you have asked for;
• respond to your feedback and support requests; and
• fix bugs, improve the product, and understand how the website is used.

Our lawful bases for processing are performance of a contract (to provide your account and reports), your consent (for marketing emails), and our legitimate interest in operating, securing, and improving the service.

We rely on third-party services to operate the website and generate reports. These include:

• Stripe for payment processing. Stripe handles your card details directly and is responsible for that data under its own privacy policy.
• Authentication and infrastructure providers that host the website and database and manage sign-in.
• UK property and third-party data providers that supply the data used to build reports (see the next section).

We only share the minimum information necessary with these providers and do not sell your personal data.

Property reports are compiled from a range of public and licensed UK data sources, which may include:

• Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) data;
• Valuation Office Agency (VOA) data, such as council tax bands;
• Land Registry sold-price and ownership data;
• Ordnance Survey address and mapping data;
• Office for National Statistics (ONS) demographic and deprivation data;
• Police crime statistics;
• Department for Education school performance data and Ofsted information;
• planning application data from local authorities; and
• licensed third-party property data providers, including Homedata.

These sources are independent of us. We do not guarantee that any third-party or property data is complete, accurate, or up to date, and reports are provided for information and research purposes only.

We keep your account, purchase, and unlocked-report data for as long as your account is open, plus any period required for tax and accounting records. Newsletter email addresses are kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them. Feedback is kept for as long as needed to act on it and improve the service.

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information, including encrypted transmission, access controls, and restricting sensitive database operations to trusted server-side processes. However, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Our infrastructure and third-party providers may process or store data outside the UK. Where this happens, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses or other lawful transfer mechanisms to ensure your information is protected to a standard equivalent to UK data protection law.

Depending on where you live and how we process your data, you may have the following rights under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018:

• the right to be informed about how we use your data;
• the right to access a copy of your personal data;
• the right to rectify inaccurate or incomplete data;
• the right to erase your data in certain circumstances;
• the right to restrict or object to processing;
• the right to data portability; and
• the right to withdraw consent for marketing emails at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at hello@beforeyoubuy.house. You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you believe we have handled your data incorrectly.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we use your data, contact us at hello@beforeyoubuy.house or by post at 124 City Road, London EC1V 2NX.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. We will revise the "Last updated" date above when we do. We encourage you to review this page periodically.