Privacy Policy

This policy explains what information gemhome (“we”, “us”) handles when you use gemhome.co.uk, and your rights under UK data protection law. We've tried to keep it plain and honest.

1. What we collect

gemhome has no user accounts or logins, and we never see or store card details. In normal use we handle:

• The property queries you enter: the listing link, or the postcode and house number, that you submit so we can build an appraisal. These are addresses and property references, not information about you.
• Rent-challenge details you choose to give us: if you use the rent-rise challenge tool, the rents, dates and (optionally) your name, your landlord's name and the property address that you enter so we can build your pack. We store these to build your pack; email us to have them erased.
• Payment confirmation, for business purchases: gemhome is free for everyday use, so ordinary reports, checks and packs don't involve a payment or collect any payment data. Where a business buys directly, that payment is handled entirely by Stripe. We receive confirmation that it succeeded, never a card number.
• Standard technical and log data, such as your IP address, browser type, and the pages you request, generated automatically by our hosting and used to run the Service securely and reliably.
• How the site is used: which parts of a report you open, read and click, how long you spend on each section, and, on report pages, a recording of the page as you use it. Anything you type into a box is masked in recordings, and so is what the page shows back from it that is about you rather than the home. This is tied to a random id kept in your browser (see section 5), not to your name or email.

2. What we don't do

We don't sell your data, and we don't share it for anyone else's marketing. We measure how the site is used so we can make it better; section 5 explains how, and how to switch it off. Advertising measurement only runs if you accept the cookie banner. We don't build profiles of people, and we don't knowingly collect personal information beyond what's needed to serve your request.

3. How public-records data is used

When you appraise a property, we retrieve public records about that property and, where a listing exists, the listing page. We combine this data and use an AI provider to generate a written summary. The result is about the property, not about you.

4. The processors we rely on

We use a small number of trusted third-party services to run gemhome. Each processes data only as needed:

• Vercel hosts our website and serves pages to your browser.
• Railway hosts our backend, which runs the appraisal process.
• Supabase provides the database in which we store appraised properties and their public-record data.
• Zyte helps us fetch listing pages when you provide a listing link.
• OpenAI, our AI provider, generates the written summary of the property and its data, and the negotiation letter in rent-rise challenge packs.
• Stripe is our payment processor. gemhome is free for everyday use, so it doesn't handle consumer payments; it's used for business purchases, such as a partner buying directly. Your card details go to Stripe directly and never touch our servers.
• PostHog runs our product analytics, recordings of report pages and error monitoring, so we can see how reports are used and what's broken. It is hosted in the EU and discards IP addresses.
• Google Ads measures which of our ads brought someone to the site, and only if you accepted the cookie banner. Decline and nothing is sent to Google at all. See section 5.

5. Cookies and browser storage

gemhome sets no cookies of its own. To understand how the site is used, we keep one random id in your browser's local storage. It lets us tell a return visit from a new one and link the reports you open. It says nothing about who you are, and clearing this site's data removes it. The same id is attached to the checks you run, so we can look into a problem with a check if you contact us.

On report pages we also record the page as you use it: where you scroll, what you open and what you click. It shows us which parts of a report help and which get in the way. Anything you type into a box is masked, and so is what the page shows back from it that is about you rather than the home, such as a commute destination or your mortgage balance. Recordings are deleted after 30 days.

You can switch this off for this browser here. It stops the analytics and the recordings straight away. A browser that sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal is never counted.

Cookies are only used for advertising measurement. If you say yes to the cookie banner, Google's advertising cookies are used so we can see which ads actually bring people here. If you say no, or simply ignore it, Google's tag is never loaded at all and no advertising cookie is set. The site behaves identically either way. To change your answer, clear this site's data in your browser and the banner will ask again.

6. Data retention

We store appraised properties, which are public-record data, in our database so we can cache results, serve them quickly, and avoid repeatedly re-fetching the same records. Technical log data is kept only for as long as it's useful for running and securing the Service, then routinely discarded.

7. Your rights under UK GDPR

To the extent we hold any personal data about you, you have rights under UK GDPR, including the right to access it, to have it corrected, and to ask us to erase it. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk. We'd ask that you contact us first so we can try to put things right.

8. International transfers

Some processors listed above may store or process data on servers outside the UK or European Economic Area. Where that happens, we rely on appropriate safeguards, such as the UK's international data transfer arrangements or standard contractual clauses, so your data stays protected.

9. Contact

For any privacy question or to make a data protection request, contact us at hello@gemhome.co.uk. A postal address is available on request.