Privacy policy.

Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data.

This includes personal data that we collect and process about you in connection with our advertising of properties to rent, your renting of a property at the sites that we manage and your use of the “Hone” mobile App, available on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store (the App) and our website www.homebyhone.com (the Website). It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal data about you. When we do so we are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

Important information and who we are

Happy Living Residential Limited is the controller and is responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as “we”, “us” or “our” in this policy).

We have appointed a data privacy manager. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, please contact them using the details set out below.

Contact details

Our full details are:

Full name of legal entity: Happy Living Residential Limited
Name or title of data privacy manager: Juliet Self
Email address: juliet@homebyhone.com
Postal address:

7 Cadbury Close
Whetstone
London
N20 9BD

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues.

Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our privacy policy under regular review.

This version was last updated in August 2025. It may change and if it does, these changes will be notified to you by email. It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during our relationship with you.

Personal data we collect about you

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you as follows:

first name(s), last name(s), username, title, and information to check and verify your identity, e.g. your date of birth, scans of your passport, ID card, driving licence (Identity Data);
contact information, including postal address, email address and telephone number (“Contact Data”);
your billing information, transactions and payment card information (Financial Data);
information to enable us to undertake credit or other financial checks on you, including your employment history, income, previous addresses, details about your financial standing and any court judgments involving you (Credit Reference Data);
the type of mobile device you use, a unique device identifier (for example, your Device’s IMEI number, the MAC address of the Device’s wireless network interface (Device Data);
internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, device ID and other technology on the devices you use to access the Website (Technical Data).
your username and password, in-App profile, Website profile and bio, profile photo, preferences, feedback and survey responses (Profile Data);
details of your use of any of our Apps including, but not limited to, messages and communications you have with us and/or other residents of the property in which you are residing via the App, traffic data and other communication data, whether this is required for our own billing purposes or otherwise and the resources that you access via the App (Usage Data); and
your preferences in receiving marketing from us and your communication preferences, if applicable (Marketing Data).

We collect and use this personal data for the purposes described in the section ‘How and why we use your personal data’ below. If you do not provide personal data we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing services to you or your ability to use the App or the Website.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). We also do not collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

How your personal data is collected

We collect most of this personal data directly from you—in person, by telephone, email and/or via our Website and the App. However, we may also collect information:

Information we collect about you and your device. Each time you visit our Website or use the App we will automatically collect personal data including Device, Content, Technical and Usage Data. We collect this data using cookies and other similar technologies.
Information we receive from other sources including third parties and publicly available sources. We will receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:
- Identity Data and Contact Data we receive from our third-party rental listing partners and property agents we work with;
- Credit Reference Data that we receive from our third-party credit reference check service provider (which may include information from publicly available sources for example the land registry, companies house and county court judgment records); and
- Financial Data from a third party with your consent, e.g. your bank or building society.

How and why we use your personal data

Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason, e.g.:

where you have given consent;
to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
for the performance of a contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract; or
for our legitimate interests or those of a third party.

A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your personal data, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.

The table below explains what we use your personal data for and why.

Purpose/activity	Type of data	Lawful basis for processing
To install the App and register you as a new App user and allow you to use the App	Identity Contact Financial Profile Device	Identity Contact Financial Profile Device
To manage our relationship with you including in relation to responding to your enquiries, setting up property viewings and reservations, our onboarding process, for your rental of a property and notifying you about changes to our terms and privacy policy.	Identity Contact Financial Usage Credit Reference	Identity Contact Financial Usage Credit Reference
To administer and protect our business and the App and the Website including troubleshooting, data analysis and system testing	Identity Contact Device Usage	Identity Contact Device Usage
To enforce legal rights or defend or undertake legal proceedings	Identity Contact Usage Credit Reference	Identity Contact Usage Credit Reference
Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies	Identity Contact Usage Financial	Identity Contact Usage Financial
Updating and enhancing customer records	All data types	All data types
To share your personal data with members of our group and third parties that will or may take control or ownership of some or all of our business (and professional advisors acting on our or their behalf) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, asset sale, initial public offering or in the event of our insolvency. In such cases information will be anonymised where possible and only shared where necessary.	Identity Contact Usage	Identity Contact Usage
To send you relevant marketing communications and recommendations to you about services that may be of interest to you	(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (f) Marketing and Communications	(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (f) Marketing and Communications

Marketing

During the registration process on our Website when your personal data is collected, you will be asked to indicate your preferences for receiving direct marketing communications from us via the consent tick-box. We may also analyse your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view which products, services and offers may be of interest to you so that we can then send you relevant marketing communications

We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.

Who we share your personal data with

We routinely share personal data with:

building owners and landlords to the extent required in connection with your Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement;
third parties we use to help deliver our services to you, e.g. payment service providers, parcel delivery system providers and property inventory management providers;
other third parties we use to help us run our business, e.g. IT system service providers, mobile app and web hosting service providers;
credit reference agencies; and
rental deposit schemes (e.g. Tenancy Deposit Scheme).

We only allow those organisations to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. We also impose contractual obligations on them to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.

We or the third parties mentioned above occasionally also share personal data with:

our and their external auditors, e.g. in relation to the audit of our or their accounts, in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations;
our and their professional advisors (such as lawyers and other advisors), in which case the recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations;
law enforcement agencies, courts, tribunals and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; and
other parties that have or may acquire control or ownership of our business (and our or their professional advisers) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring, including a merger, acquisition, asset sale, initial public offering or in the event of our insolvency—usually, information will be anonymised, but this may not always be possible. The recipient of any of your personal data will be bound by confidentiality obligations.

Who we share your personal data with—in more detail

More details about who we share your personal data with and why are set out in the table below.

Recipient	Processing operation (use) by recipient	Relevant categories of personal data transferred to recipient
Quadient Parcel Management	Managing deliveries of parcels to the building and contacting you about this.	Managing deliveries of parcels to the building and contacting you about this.
The Dispute Service Limited -Scheme administrator for the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS) on behalf of the Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities.	Processing payments and setting up deposit payments with the Tenancy Deposit Scheme.	Processing payments and setting up deposit payments with the Tenancy Deposit Scheme.
Spike Global Ltd	Web and data hosting for the provision and operation of this App and related services.	Web and data hosting for the provision and operation of this App and related services.
Hubspot	Storing personal data about you and managing our communications with you	Storing personal data about you and managing our communications with you
Flatfair Limited Homeppl Ltd	Conducting Credit Reference checks on residents during the onboarding process on our behalf.	Conducting Credit Reference checks on residents during the onboarding process on our behalf.
Sage Group plc	Provision of account services	Provision of account services
Sirec Technologies Limited	Provision of IT support services	Provision of IT support services
Stripe Payments UK, Ltd.	For processing payments (including when paying rent) via the App.	For processing payments (including when paying rent) via the App.
Tenancy Guard Ltd (t/a Inventory Guard)	For conducting property inventory checks on our behalf.	For conducting property inventory checks on our behalf.

Where your personal data is held and data security

Your personal data is stored in either the UK or within the European Economic Area (EEA). We do not transfer your personal data outside of the UK or the EEA.

We seek to protect your personal data from unauthorized access, use and disclosure using appropriate physical, technical, organisational and administrative security measures based on the type of personal data and how we are processing that data. You should also help protect your data by appropriately selecting and protecting your password and/or other sign-on mechanism; limiting access to your device; and signing off after you have finished accessing your account. Although we work to protect the security of your account and other data that we hold in our records, please be aware that no method of transmitting data over the internet or storing data is completely secure.

How long your personal data will be kept

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements.

We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

For personal data that is not required to be kept for legal purposes or where our legitimate interests are not overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms, we will generally retain your data for 7 years from your last interaction with us. If we rely on your consent to process your data and you withdraw your consent then we will delete or anonymise your data from the date you withdraw your consent, provided that there are no legal purposes for which we need to keep it or we do not have any other lawful basis for processing your data.

Your rights

You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:

Access	The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data
Rectification	The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data
Erasure (also known as the right to be forgotten)	The right to require us to delete your personal data—in certain situations
Restriction of processing	The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data in certain circumstances, e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data
Data portability	The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party—in certain situations
To object	The right to object: —at any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling); —in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal data, e.g. processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests unless there are compelling legitimate grounds for the processing to continue or the processing is required for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
Not to be subject to automated individual decision making	The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you
The right to withdraw consent	If you have provided us with a consent to use your personal data you have a right to withdraw that consent easily at any time You may withdraw consent by contacting us using the details set out above. Withdrawing consent will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn

For more information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below) or see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:

email, call or write to us—see above: Important information and how to contact us; and
provide enough information to identify yourself (e.g. your full name, address and any matter reference number) and any additional identity information we may reasonably request from you;
let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.

Keeping your personal data secure

We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being lost accidentally, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your personal data will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

How to complain

Please contact us if you have any queries or concerns about our use of your personal data (see below ‘How to contact us’). We hope we will be able to resolve any issues you may have.

You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner (the UK data protection regulator).

Cookies Policy

Our Website and App uses cookies/tracking technologies to provide you with a good experience when you use the Website and the App and also allows us to improve the Website and the App.

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your device if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your device’s storage.

We use the following cookies:

Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our Website. These essential cookies are always enabled because our Website won’t work properly without them. You can switch off these cookies in your device’s settings but you may then not be able to access all or parts of the Website.
Analytical or performance cookies. These allow us to recognise and count the number of users and to see how users move around the Website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our Website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to use the Website. This enables us to personalise our content for you and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).

You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the table below:

Cookie	Duration	Description
__cf_bm	1 hour	This cookie, set by Cloudflare, is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management.
wt_consent	1 year	Used for remembering users’ consent preferences to be respected on subsequent site visits. It does not collect or store personal information about visitors to the site.
wpEmojiSettingsSupports	session	WordPress sets this cookie when a user interacts with emojis on a WordPress site. It helps determine if the user's browser can display emojis properly.

We do not share the information collected by the cookies with any third parties.

If you have any questions or concerns about our use of cookies, please contact using the details provided above.