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 you marketing unless you separately agree to it.

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.
• Our service providers for hosting, email and bank connection (Mastercard). 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.

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.

Your rights

You can ask to see, correct, export or delete your information, object to 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.