Privacy policy

Updated: 23 November 2022

Hometree Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Hometree Marketplace Limited (“Hometree,” “we,” “us,” “our”) of Hamilton House, 4 Mabledon Place, King’s Cross, London, WC1H 9BB understands the importance of keeping your personal data safe. Hometree is the data controller.

This privacy policy explains what personal data we collect from you, how we use it, who we share it with and how long we keep it for whether you are an existing or prospective customer or a member of our trade network. It also sets out your rights in relation to your personal data.

Please take the time to read this policy and let us know if you have any questions. You can email us at support@hometree.co.uk or contact our Customer Success Team who will be very happy to help. Their contact details are set out at the end of this policy.

We review our privacy policy regularly. Where this policy has been updated, this will be clearly identified by reference to the date of the policy at the top of this page. We encourage you to check our privacy policy regularly to ensure you have read the most recent version.

2. What personal data do we collect?

Prospective and Existing Customers

When you research and/or buy a product or service from us, we collect the following personal data directly from you:

Your contact details – your name, address, telephone number (landline and/or mobile) and email address.
Property type and address – flat or house.
Heating system – make, model and age of your boiler and the condition of the central heating system.
Authorised parties – contact details of any other person you authorise to receive our services e.g. relatives or tenants.
IP address for your device.
Your responses to our surveys and competitions.
Your call out history.
Anti-fraud information – information which helps us detect and prevent fraud.
Records of your discussions with our Customer Success Team – call recordings, webchat. Messages via social media and emails.
Your direct marketing preferences.

We also collect your personal data (name, address, email address) from:

Other companies where you have agreed with those companies that you are happy to receive marketing communications from similar companies or have accepted all cookies.
Marketing databases and social media platforms where they are available to buy.
Moving home companies that, at your request, have sold our services to you.
Price comparison websites where you have considered buying, or have bought our services, via their websites

Members of our trade network

When you apply to become part of our trade network, we collect your contact details including your name, telephone number and email address. We also collect your Gas Safety Registration and banking details. If you are a sole trader, your banking details are personal data.

3. How we use your personal data

Prospective and Existing Customers

We use your personal data as follows:

To perform the contract we are about to enter into, or have entered into with you, so that you can receive our services. This includes maintaining your account with us and sending reminders of your contract renewal.
On the basis of our legitimate business interest, (i) to investigate any suspected or actual misuse of your account from fraud or crime, (ii) pricing and modelling, (iii) to track, analyse and improve the services we give you and other customers, (iv) to train our staff, (v) to extend our existing products, develop new products and services (vi) to understand how you interact with us via our website using cookies (vii) to find new customers like you (viii) to track how you learnt about our services and (ix) to merge or sell our company or business assets.
To receive direct marketing information from us, to update you on any promotions we are running including benefits from referring a friend and to send you information about our products that we think you might be interested in. We do this because you are a prospective or existing customer. To opt out of receiving marketing information please use the unsubscribe option at the bottom of each message. We also collect how you respond to our promotional and marketing information.
Where you have consented to receive direct marketing from other companies, to send you information on our services including promotions.

Members of our trade network

When you request to join our trade network and enter into a contract for your services, we use your personal data to determine whether you are suitable to join our trade network and to communicate with you to enter into a contract if your application is successful. When you join our trade network, we use your personal data to send you details of your customer appointments and pay you.

4. Who do we share your personal data with

We share existing customers’ personal data as follows:

Members of our trade network, so that you can receive our care plan services.
Our payment processor, so that they can collect payment for our services.
Boiler manufacturers and repair companies who provide installation services on our behalf.
Social media networks.
Our review provider.
Our live chat provider.

We share names of our members of our trade network with customers in relation to their boiler and heating system appointments.

We share personal data from prospective customers, existing customers and members of our trade network as follows:

Other companies within the Hometree group of companies so that you can receive our care plan services.
Companies that provide us with IT services to support our service delivery including our Customer Success Team support and cloud hosting services.
Providers of similar care plan services who we partner with and who refer new customers to us, so that we can comply with our referral agreements and they can ensure our customer records are accurate.
Companies that provide us with marketing services.
To comply with our legal obligations.
To buy or sell company assets

5. How long do we keep your personal data

Prospective and Existing Customers

Where you have made an enquiry about our services but haven’t signed up as a customer, we keep your personal data for 24 months

If you are an existing customer, we keep your personal data while you remain a customer and for 7 years after that, unless we are required by law or regulations to keep it for longer.

Members of our Trade Network

We keep your personal data while you remain a member of our trade network and for 7 years after that, unless we are required by law or regulations to keep it for longer.

6. Your rights in relation to your personal data

The law entitles you:

to receive a copy of any of your personal data we have collected directly from you and indirectly from other sources;
to request that we correct or complete personal data we have collected;
to request that we delete or stop using or storing any of your personal data when we no longer need it, or are required to continue storing it by law or regulatory authority;
to object to the processing of your personal data where we are processing it, other than where we need to continue processing it to fulfil your request in relation to services you have requested; and
in some circumstances, have your personal data transferred to another organisation.

If you would like to exercise any of these choices, please get in touch with our Customer Success Team using support@hometree.co.uk or by calling us on 0330 173 9549. Where we have shared your personal data with other companies, we will let them know if you exercise any of these choices.

If you believe that we have not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner who can be contacted at www.ico.org.uk or by telephone on 0303 123 1113.

7. Third party websites

Our website may, from time to time, contain links to other websites. We may also send you links to other websites, for example when we ask you to complete a satisfaction survey using our review provider. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

8. Where we store your data
We store your personal data in the UK and Ireland. Where we need to transfer your personal data outside of the UK or the European Economic Area (‘EEA’) we ensure that we have transfer protections in place as required by law.

9. How to make a complaint

At Hometree, we are dedicated to giving you the best customer experience. If we make a mistake or if you think we haven’t done the right thing, please let us know as soon as possible so that we can put things right.

Call us on 0330 173 9549
Email us at support@hometree.co.uk

We take any complaint seriously and we’ll do our best to fix any issue as soon as possible. If we need time to investigate, we’ll let you know and keep you updated.

10. Our cookies policy

Cookies are small text files placed on your computer to collect standard Internet log information and visitor behaviour information. When you visit our website, we may collect information from you that includes your personal data automatically through cookies or similar technology. A mix of first-party and third-party cookies are used.

You can manage your preferences regarding all cookies other than necessary cookies set by our website, when you land on the website and are asked by our cookie preference manager to either “accept and continue” or set your own “cookie settings”.

Our website uses the following types of cookies, which are listed in full in our cookie preference manager when you land on our website for the first time and then annually after that:

Necessary: These cookies are required for our website to function and cannot be switched off.
Functional: We use these cookies so that we recognize you on our website and collect feedback.
Performance: We use these cookies to understand and analyse the key performance indexes of the website, which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics: We use a number of different third party cookies to understand and analyse how you interact with our website, so that we can improve user experience.
Advertising: These cookies allow us and similar organisations to show you adverts that we think will be of interest to you. Through our use of tracking technology these adverts are personalised to you.

If you want to change your cookie settings sooner then please use this link and manage your cookie settings here at any time.