How we use your information

Who we are

Affordify is run by Affordify.ai Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 16719369), registered office 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom. In these pages, “we” and “us” mean Affordify.ai Ltd, which is also the controller of your personal information.

Who is responsible

Affordify.ai Ltd (see “Who we are” above) is the controller of the information you give us, for buyers in the UK and the EU. Property portals and estate agents that show Affordify on their pages, and advisers or lenders you choose to share with, are separate controllers of what they receive from you. Mastercard acts as the account information provider when you connect your bank. Privacy questions: [email protected].

What we collect

• Your email address and name, and your phone number only if you ask an adviser to contact you.
• Your answers: who is buying, purchase plans, deposit and its source, employment, income, credit repayments, housing and care costs, and dependants.
• The property you were viewing and the website you came from.
• If you connect your bank: summary figures worked out from your balances and transactions: regular payments in (payer name, typical amount and the months seen, so you can confirm which is your pay), regular payments out and credit repayments (amounts and months), direct debits, balances and card balances owed. We do not keep your transactions.
• A record of each permission you give: what, with whom, for what purpose, and when.

Why we use it, and on what basis

• To run your check and show your budget, send your code, your result and the links you ask for: because you asked us to (performing our contract with you).
• To read your bank information: only with your consent, given in a separate step.
• To share a summary or an introduction with a named agent, portal, adviser or lender: only with your consent, each time.
• To prevent misuse, fraud and duplicate requests, keep the service secure, and keep records of permissions: our legitimate interests, and our legal obligations where they apply.

We do not send marketing to users of the buying-budget service unless they separately agree.

How your budget is calculated

Your budget is calculated automatically from your answers and, if you connect it, your bank information, using rules based on how lenders assess borrowing (income multiples, payment tests and commitments). This is profiling in data-protection terms. It does not decide anything about you: no lender, agent or adviser is bound by it, and nothing is refused or approved because of it. You can ask a person at Affordify to review how your budget was calculated.

Who receives it

• You. Your summary and estimates page.
• A listing agent or property portal, only if you choose to share: the property price, your budget, the gap and whether it is an estimate or bank-verified.
• A mortgage adviser or lender, only the one named on screen and only if you ask: your contact details and answers.
• Mastercard, if you connect your bank: as the account information provider it connects to your bank with your consent and sends us the account information you approved, under its own terms and privacy notice.
• Our service providers for hosting and email. They act on our instructions.

Affordify is paid by portals, agents, advisers and lenders for its service, which can include fees for summaries or introductions you choose to share. Recipients are the ones named on the listing or on screen; we never pass your information to anyone you did not choose, and any payment is shown to you before you confirm.

How long we keep it

• Your estimates and answers: until 24 months after your last activity, then deleted.
• Bank summary figures: 90 days after you connect, then deleted. Your budget keeps the label “bank-verified” with the date it was checked.
• Records of permissions and of what was shared: 6 years, to show what you agreed to.
• Unfinished checks with only an email: 90 days.

You can ask us to delete your information sooner. A summary or introduction you already chose to share is held by the recipient under its own privacy policy; we will tell them about your request where we can.

Where it is processed

Some of our providers process information outside the UK and the EU, for example in the United States. When they do, we rely on UK and EU adequacy decisions (including the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and the UK extension) or on standard contractual clauses. You can request information about, or a copy of, the applicable transfer safeguards by emailing [email protected].

Security

Information is encrypted in transit, access is limited to the people who need it, bank access is read-only and we store summary figures rather than transactions.

Cookies

The buying-power check uses only the storage needed to run it, such as keeping you signed in to your estimates. It does not use advertising or tracking cookies.

Business contacts and partnerships

This part is for people we contact about partnerships: portals, agents, advisers, lenders and other businesses. Affordify.ai Ltd is responsible for this information too.

• What we collect: your name, job title, organisation, business email address, where we found your details, and our correspondence with you, including any request not to be contacted again.
• Where it comes from: company websites and professional directories that are publicly available, or you, during our discussions. When we first contact you, we tell you where we found your details.
• Why we use it: to identify relevant partnership opportunities, introduce Affordify, discuss working together and manage our business relationships. The basis is our legitimate interest in developing relevant partnerships: we consider how relevant the contact is to your role, what you would reasonably expect and your rights before we use your details. Where electronic-marketing rules require consent, we ask for it first. Details being public is not consent.
• Who processes it: service providers that support our research, email, drafting and storage, including Google (Gmail) and OpenAI, acting on our instructions. Transfers outside the UK and the EU follow the safeguards in “Where it is processed” above.
• How long we keep it: prospect details until 24 months after our last contact, then deleted; records of a business relationship for as long as it lasts and 6 years after; a request not to be contacted for as long as needed to respect it, keeping only what is needed for that.
• Your choice: if you would rather not hear from us, reply to our email or write to [email protected]. You can object at any time, free of charge and without giving a reason, and we will stop.

The rights below apply to this information as well.

Your rights

You can ask to see, correct, export or delete your information, object to how we use it, ask us to restrict how we use it, ask for a person to review your budget, and withdraw any permission you gave at any time. Use your estimates page, or email [email protected]. We reply within one month.

If you are unhappy with our answer, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk, or, in the EU, to the data protection authority where you live.