Privacy notice

Abide.Rent is operated by the company named under “Who we are” on this page (“we”, “us”, “our”). This notice is the information the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 require us to give you. It is not legal advice.

Cookies are explained in the cookie notice. The contract for using the site and the product is in the terms of use.

1. Who we are and how to contact us

Abide.Rent is operated by the company named under “Who we are” on this page (“we”, “us”, “our”). Our registered details, our ICO registration number and, if we are established outside the UK, our UK representative are shown there. Email us at the address under “Who we are” on this page. You do not need an account to contact us.

We have not appointed a data protection officer, because the law does not require one for what we do.

2. Our two roles

When an agency or a landlord puts tenancy records into the product — names, contact details, rent, documents — they are the controller of those records, and we process them on their behalf under our data processing terms. If your details are on a tenancy record, the agency or landlord who added you is the first place to ask about that record. We will pass on any request you send us.

We are the controller for everything else in this notice: visits to this website, the account you sign in with, security and service logs, billing, support, and the copy of an issued document that each party keeps.

3. Personal data we use

If you read this website

We do not ask for your name. Our hosting provider processes your IP address, browser details, the date and time, and the page requested, in server logs. We do not set advertising cookies, and we do not sell this data.

If the analytics tools listed in the cookie notice are switched on: Plausible counts visits without cookies and keeps totals only (legitimate interests, and you can object); Microsoft Clarity records how pages are used only if you accept analytics (consent); and in the signed-in product, PostHog records which pages and steps agency and landlord users use only if they allow it (consent), by internal account numbers, never in the tenant portal. The processors are in the table below.

If you create an account or accept an invitation

• Identity and contact details — name, email address, password (stored only as a hash), and the role you act in (agent, landlord or tenant).
• If you sign in with Google: your name, email address and Google account identifier, which Google sends us when you choose it.
• Account and security data — sign-in times, the IP address used, session tokens and the view you are using.
• Billing data, if you pay — the payer, plan, number of tenancies, invoices and Stripe references. Stripe holds your card details; we never see the full card number.
• Support messages you send us.

If someone else adds you to a tenancy record

An agency or landlord may enter your name, email address, address and tenancy details, and the documents they send you. We process that for them as described in section 2. If you then sign in as a tenant, your sign-in account is ours to look after.

Emails the product sends

The product sends sign-in codes, invitations, notifications and, when the sender chooses, notices by email. Those emails use small images and tracked links that tell us whether the email was delivered, whether it was reported as opened, and whether a link was clicked. We record that against the email so the sender can see it. An “opened” report is a signal, not proof: some email programs block images and some open every email automatically.

Public tribunal decisions

Published First-tier Tribunal decisions are public information under the Open Government Licence v3.0. We use them to show outcome rates. They can contain names; we do not use them to find out about you.

4. Why we use it and our lawful basis

• To run the website and keep it secure — legitimate interests.
• To create and run your account, invite people, keep dual roles apart and show the right view — contract.
• To keep the copy of an issued document each party holds, and to keep a legal hold on records attached to a live notice, tribunal referral or possession claim — legitimate interests (each party being able to show what happened), and legal obligation where we must not destroy evidence.
• To take payment and keep billing records — contract and legal obligation (tax and accounting law).
• To send service emails and record delivery and opens — contract for account emails; for emails sent on a customer’s behalf, we act on their instructions.
• To answer support requests and complaints — legitimate interests.
• To improve the product using counts that do not identify anyone — legitimate interests.
• To comply with the law, including data protection requests and court orders — legal obligation.
• Marketing email — only with your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.

We do not need special-category data. Do not put health, ethnicity or criminal-offence data into a free-text field. We do not make solely automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects: a rent range or a risk score supports a person, who still proposes, approves and serves.

5. Your right to object

You can object to processing based on legitimate interests, and to direct marketing at any time. We will stop marketing when you ask. For other processing we will stop unless we have compelling grounds that override your interests, or we need the data for a legal claim. Email us at the address under “Who we are” on this page.

6. Who we share it with

The processors that help us run the product are in the table on this page. Each works under a contract that requires it to protect the data and use it only for us. We also share personal data with:

• people you invite to a property record, to the extent that record is for them;
• a CRM you choose to connect, when connectors exist, in the direction you set;
• professional advisers bound by confidentiality;
• a court, tribunal, regulator or the ICO where the law requires it;
• a business that takes over the product, which must keep to this notice.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers.

7. Transfers outside the UK

Some of our people work in India and can access personal data to support and maintain the product. Some processors in the table process data outside the UK. India and the United States do not have a full UK adequacy decision. Where a transfer is not covered by adequacy regulations (including the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, where the recipient is certified), we use the ICO’s International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses, with a transfer risk assessment. You can ask us for a copy of the relevant safeguards.

8. How long we keep it

• Website server logs: up to 90 days, unless a security investigation needs them for longer.
• Your account: while it is open. After you close it, we delete account data within 90 days, except as below.
• Records under a legal hold: until the hold ends, then six years — the usual time limit for a contract claim in England — then deleted or anonymised.
• Copies of issued documents that each party keeps: for as long as that party’s own account exists, and at least as long as any legal hold.
• Billing records: six years after the end of the financial year they relate to, as tax law requires.
• Support messages and complaints: up to 24 months after the conversation closes, unless a claim needs them.
• Email delivery and open events: as long as the notice or message they relate to.
• Cookie preferences: up to 12 months, or until you change them.

9. Your rights

Under the UK GDPR you have the right to:

• be told how your data is used — this notice;
• a copy of your personal data;
• have inaccurate data corrected;
• have data erased in some cases — not where a legal hold or the law requires us to keep it;
• restrict how we use it;
• data portability, where the basis is contract or consent;
• object — see section 5;
• withdraw consent where we relied on it;
• complain to the ICO.

Email us at the address under “Who we are” on this page. We reply within one month. For a tenancy record an agency or landlord controls, we pass your request to them and help them answer it. Separate roles stay separate: a request about your tenant role does not touch your landlord role, or the other way round.

10. Children

The product is not for anyone under 18. We do not knowingly create accounts for children. If you believe we have, contact us and we will delete the account unless a legal hold prevents it.

11. How to complain

You can complain to us using our complaints procedure. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK supervisory authority: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF. Telephone 0303 123 1113. https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/ You do not have to come to us first.

12. Changes

The published version of this page is the current one. The date at the top changes when the substance changes. If we start a new purpose or a new kind of transfer, we will update this page before we do it — and, where the law requires, tell you directly.