Privacy Policy

At Hometree, we value transparency and your privacy. This policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with and the rights you have. If you have any questions, please contact us using the details in section 14.

1. Who we are

This policy applies to Hometree Marketplace Limited (company number 09808066, registered office Hamilton House, 4 Mabledon Place, London, United Kingdom, WC1H 9BB) and the other companies in the Hometree Group (together, “Hometree”, “we”, “us” and “our”). Hometree Marketplace Limited is the controller of your personal information unless we tell you otherwise. This policy covers the following websites and brands (together, our “Service”):

Brand	Website
Hometree	www.hometree.co.uk/contact/
Hometree Finance	hometreefinance.co.uk/contact
Your Repair	www.yourrepair.co.uk/contact
Geowarmth	www.geowarmth.co.uk/contact-us/
IMS Heat Pumps	www.imsheatpumps.co.uk/contact/
The Little Green Energy Company	www.tlgec.co.uk/contact-us/
GreenGenUK	www.greengenuk.com/contact-us/
CORGI HomePlan	www.corgihomeplan.co.uk/contact-us/
OVO Home Services (HTG Home Services Limited)	www.ovoenergy.com/home-services/feedback
CORGI HomeHeat	https://corgihomeheat.co.uk/
Hometree Group	www.hometree.co.uk/group/

Our Data Protection Officer can be contacted at [email protected].

Job applicants and staff: if you apply for a role with us or work for us, please read our separate Candidate and Staff Privacy Notices, which explain how we use your information in that context.

2. Information we collect

The table below explains the types of personal information we use. We refer to these types in section 3.

Type	What it includes
Identity	Name, title, date of birth.
Contact	Address, email address, phone number.
Property and location	The address and postcode of the property we cover or work on, and details of your home, boiler or heating system, information about your local area linked to your postcode (such as water hardness and water quality), and risk scores we create from this information.
Account	Login details, policy and plan details, service history, claims, correspondence and call recordings.
Financial	Bank or card details, direct debit details, payment history.
Finance application	Information you give when applying for finance, such as income, employment and residential status, and information from credit reference agencies.
Health and Vulnerability	Information about circumstances that may mean you, or someone in your home, need extra support. This could be about your health or a disability, a major life event such as a bereavement, money worries, or finding it hard to read, use digital services or understand information. We usually get this because you tell us, someone you have asked to act for you tells us, or it becomes clear when we speak to you or visit your home. Information about health is special category information, so we give it extra protection.
Interaction	Feedback, survey responses, reviews, competition entries and live chat messages.
Technical and usage	IP address, device and browser information, cookie identifiers and how you use our websites and emails.
Marketing preferences	Your marketing choices and how you respond to our communications.
Business	For trade network members: company name, role, business contact details, accreditations and transaction information.

Please let us know if your details change, so the information we hold about you stays accurate and up to date.

Where we get your information

• From you, when you get a quote, buy a product, contact us, enter a competition or use our websites.
• From third parties, including credit reference and fraud prevention agencies, our installers and repair partners, comparison and referral partners, advertising and analytics providers, providers of property, geographical and environmental data (such as water hardness and water quality data), and publicly available sources such as Companies House.
• Automatically, through cookies and similar technologies when you use our websites (see section 6).

Some information is needed so that we can provide a product or service to you, for example to underwrite an insurance policy or assess a finance application. If you do not provide it, we may not be able to provide that product or service. We will tell you when information is required.

3. How we use your information

We can only use your personal information when the law allows it. This is called our “lawful basis”. The lawful bases we rely on are explained at the end of this section.

Customers and website users

What we use it for	Types of information	Lawful basis
To provide our Service and manage your account, including: • registering you and creating your account • sending service updates and telling you about changes to our terms, this policy or our Service • responding to your requests	Identity, Contact, Property and location, Account, Financial	Contract Legal obligation
To arrange insurance, including: • reviewing your application so it can be underwritten • sharing your information with our insurer • taking payments and handling claims	Identity, Contact, Property and location, Account, Financial	Contract Legal obligation
To assess the risks linked to your property and local area, and use this to set the price of our products and services when you get a quote and when you renew (see section 8)	Identity, Contact, Property and location, Account	Contract (where we need to do this to give you a quote or renew your cover); Legitimate interests (pricing our products and services fairly according to risk)
To process applications for finance through Hometree Finance, including credit and identity checks	Identity, Contact, Finance application, Financial	Contract Legal obligation Legitimate interests (preventing fraud and responsible lending)
To contact you by phone, email or SMS if you get a quote or start signing up but don’t finish, using the contact details you gave us, so we can help you complete your sign-up or, answer any questions or remind you about your quote	Identity, Contact	Legitimate interests (helping people complete a quote or sign-up they have started) Consent, where the law requires it for emails and SMS
To put you in touch with other Hometree Group companies or partners who can provide related services, such as finance, other insurance products or installations	Identity, Contact, Property and location	Legitimate interests (offering relevant services) Consent, where we contact you by email or SMS
To ask you to leave a review, give feedback or take part in a survey	Contact, Account, Interaction	Legitimate interests (improving our Service)
To monitor and record calls, emails and live chat for staff training and quality purposes	Identity, Contact, Account, Interaction	Legitimate Interests (training our staff and maintaining the quality of our Service)
To run promotions, competitions and prize draws, including checking entries, contacting winners and delivering prizes	Identity, Contact, Interaction	Contract (the promotion terms) Legal obligation
To run reward, loyalty and refer-a-friend scheme and give you incentives	Identity, Contact, Account, Financial, Marketing preferences	Consent, Legitimate Interests (growing our business and rewarding our customers)
To send you marketing (see section 5)	Identity, Contact, Marketing preferences	Consent Legitimate interests (customers and people who have asked us for a quote, where allowed by law)
To contact you for up to 12 months after your contract ends, to tell you about our similar products and offers and invite you back (see section 5)	Identity, Contact, Account, Marketing preferences	Legitimate interests (inviting former customers back); Consent, where the law requires it for emails and SMS
To personalise our websites and show you relevant advertising (see section 6)	Contact, Account, Technical and usage	Consent (for cookies) Legitimate interests (showing you relevant content and measuring how well our advertising works)
To create internal reports and customer profiles for forecasting and marketing purposes	Identity, Contact, Account, Financial, Technical and usage, Marketing preferences	Legitimate interests (understanding how customers use our Service, developing our products and informing our marketing strategy)
To run, fix, test and improve our Service, and to analyse how it is used and market trends	Account, Interaction, Technical and usage	Legitimate interests (running and improving our business)
To keep our Service safe and secure, and to prevent and detect fraud	Identity, Contact, Account, Financial, Technical and usage	Legitimate interests (security and fraud prevention) Legal obligation
To collect payments and recover money you owe us, including through debt collection agencies	Identity, Contact, Account, Financial	Contract; Legitimate interests (recovering money owed to us)
To use AI tools for data analytics, productivity and automation (see section 4)	Any of the above, anonymised wherever practical	Legitimate interests (efficiency and cost saving)
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, including FCA and DESNZ obligations, and to respond to rights requests and complaints	Any of the above	Legal obligation
To record any vulnerability you tell us about, so we can adjust how we communicate with you and support you, as FCA rules require	Health and Vulnerability, Identity, Contact, Account	Legal Obligation
To prioritise repairs for vulnerable customers who are without heating or hot water under our boiler and heating products	Health and vulnerability, Property and location, Account	Legal Obligation
To share information about your (or a member of your household’s) health or other additional needs with our engineers, installers and repair partners, so they can give you the right level of service	Health and vulnerability, Identity, Contact, Property and location	Explicit consent

Members of our trade network

If you, or the company you work for, are part of our installer or repair network, or we deal with you in a business context:

What we use it for	Types of information	Lawful basis
To enter into and perform our contract with you or your company, and manage your account	Identity, Contact, Business	Contract Legitimate interests (managing our relationships with contractors and other partners)
To make and verify payments and bills	Business, Financial	Contract Legal obligation
To answer your queries	Identity, Contact	Legitimate interests (responding to people who contact us)
To market our Service to you or your company	Identity, Contact, Business	Legitimate interests (growing our business) Consent, where required by law

Our lawful bases explained

• Contract: the processing is needed to perform a contract with you, or to take steps you have asked for before entering into one.
• Legal obligation: the processing is needed to comply with the law, for example FCA rules, tax law, data protection law or a court order.
• Consent: you have given us clear permission. You can withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting anything we did before you withdrew it.
• Legitimate interests: the processing is needed for our legitimate interests, or those of a third party, and your rights do not override those interests. The interest we rely on is shown in brackets in the tables above.

We carry out an assessment before relying on legitimate interests. You can ask us for more information about this, and you have the right to object (see section 13).

• Vital interests: in rare cases, we may use your information to protect your life or someone else’s, for example in an emergency at your property.

4. Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools

We use AI tools for data analytics, to help us increase productivity and to automate tasks, so we can save costs, work more efficiently and make better use of our staff’s time.

We rely on our legitimate interests for this processing. We have balanced these interests against your rights and put the following safeguards in place:

• we anonymise personal information before using it wherever practical;
• we only use the personal information needed for the task;
• we have written contracts with our AI tool suppliers, as they act as our data processors. The agreements state that they may not use your information for their own purposes, including training their AI models;
• our staff check AI outputs before relying on them; and
• We do not use AI to make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects without meaningful human involvement.

You have the right to object to this use of your information (see section 13).

5. Marketing

We will contact you about your account and our Service using the contact method we have agreed with you.

We will only send you marketing by email or SMS if you have agreed to it, or if you gave us your details when buying from us, getting a quote or starting to sign up, were given the chance to opt out and did not, and we are telling you about our own similar products and services. You can opt out of these at any time). We also use your information to analyse how effective our marketing is.

We may also call, email or text you if you get a quote or start signing up but don’t finish, to help you complete it or remind you about your quote. We may also call you about our products and services. We won’t call you if you’ve told us not to, or if your number is registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), unless you’ve agreed to hear from us by phone.

You can opt out at any time by clicking “unsubscribe” in any marketing email, telling us during a call, updating your preferences in your customer portal, or emailing [email protected]. Opting out of marketing will not affect service messages about your policy or account.

If you stop being our customer, we may contact you for up to 12 months after your contract ends to tell you about our similar products and offers and invite you back. We will not do this if you have opted out of marketing, and we will only contact you after that time if you have agreed to hear from us for longer.

If you ask us to delete your details or to stop marketing to you, we will keep a record of your name, address, email address and phone number on our “do not contact” list so that we do not contact you again. We may share your updated preferences with our marketing agencies and partners so that they do not send you marketing either.

Refer a friend: if you take part in one of our refer-a-friend offers, please only send the offer to people who are happy to hear about our services. We will not contact anyone you refer unless they contact us first.

6. Advertising and cookies

Cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies on our websites. Some are strictly necessary for the website to work. We only use other cookies with your consent, which you can give or withdraw at any time through the cookie settings on our website.

Type	What it does
Strictly necessary	Needed for our website to work. These cannot be switched off.
Functional	Remember your choices and help us collect feedback.
Performance and analytics	Help us understand how visitors use our website so that we can improve it.
Advertising	Allow us and our advertising partners to show you adverts that are relevant to you.

Examples of the providers we use include Google Analytics, Hotjar and Mixpanel (performance and analytics), Trustpilot and live chat providers (functional) and Google Ads and Facebook (advertising). You can see a full list of the cookies we use in our Cookie Policy. You can also block or delete cookies through your browser settings, although some parts of our websites may not then work properly.

Online advertising

We work with advertising partners, including social media platforms such as Meta, to show you relevant adverts on our websites and elsewhere online, and to measure how well our adverts work. These adverts may be based on information we hold about you or how you have used our websites.

With your consent, we may share your email address or phone number with an advertising platforms, using tools such as Google Ads Customer Match and Facebook Custom Audiences, to avoid showing our adverts to existing customers and to reach people with similar interests. We convert your details into a scrambled code first (a process called “hashing”). We also work with Experian to make the content and adverts shown on your devices more relevant. To do this, Experian uses cookies and receives information about the type of device you use and your IP address.

You can opt out of personalised advertising by changing your cookie settings, updating your preferences in your customer portal, calling us on 0330 912 4843, or using the advertising settings on the relevant platform.

7. Who we share your information with

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only where necessary with:

• Hometree Group companies, to provide and support our services.
• Our installers and repair partners, who carry out work at your property.
• Insurers and finance providers, to underwrite insurance and provide finance.
• Providers of property, geographical and environmental data, who check your postcode against their data (for example, to tell us about water hardness or water quality in your area).
• Payment processors, to collect payments by direct debit or card.
• Debt collection agencies, to recover money you owe us.
• Credit reference and fraud prevention agencies (see section 8).
• Service providers who work on our behalf, such as IT, hosting, live chat, customer service, review site, survey, analytics and AI providers.
• Advertising partners and social media platforms, where you have consented (see section 6).
• Price comparison and referral websites, where you ask for a quote or switch to us through their site.
• Marketing agencies, to send you information about our products and services where you have agreed (or where the law otherwise allows), to make sure your marketing preferences are respected, and to help run our reward and loyalty schemes.
• Promotion partners, if you enter a prize draw or competition we run with them.
• Professional advisers, such as lawyers, auditors and insurers.
• Regulators and authorities, such as the FCA, ICO, HMRC, DESNZ, the police or a court, where we are required to by law.
• A buyer or investor, if we sell, buy or merge any part of our business. The new owner may use your information in the same way as set out in this policy.

Service providers acting on our behalf may only use your information in line with our instructions. Where third parties use your information for their own purposes, they are responsible for it under their own privacy policies.

8. Credit reference agencies

To help us assess applications, prevent fraud, and meet our legal and regulatory obligations, we may obtain information about you from credit reference agencies (CRAs).

We obtain this information via Creditsafe, which uses its data partner TransUnion to supply consumer credit and identity data.

• Creditsafe Business Solutions Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA Firm Reference Number: 742313.
• TransUnion International UK Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA Firm Reference Number: 737740.

The information we receive may include data relating to your identity, credit commitments, payment history, and public record information. This data is used solely for legitimate business purposes, including creditworthiness assessment, identity verification, and fraud prevention, in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

Further information about how Creditsafe and TransUnion process your personal data can be found in their respective privacy notices:

• Creditsafe Transparency Notice
• TransUnion CRAIN (Credit Reference Agency Information Notice)

Automated decisions

If you apply for finance, we may use automated checks, including credit scoring, to decide whether we can offer you finance. If a decision is made automatically and has a significant effect on you, you can ask for a member of our team to review it, give us your point of view and challenge the decision.

If you buy an insurance product, the insurer may use information about where your property is to decide whether it can cover you, and your claims history to set your premium at renewal. To find out more about how our insurer uses your information, you can write to: The Data Protection Officer, HTG Insurance Services Limited, PO Box 155, Mill Court, La Charroterie, St Peter Port, Guernsey, GY1 4ET.

Risk-based pricing: when you get a quote or renew, we may use information about your property and local area to assess the risk of your boiler, heating or other covered items breaking down, and use this to help set your price. The main factors are your postcode, information about your area linked to it (such as water hardness, which can cause limescale and boiler faults), details of your property, boiler or heating system, and your service and claims history. Higher-risk factors may mean a higher price, and lower-risk factors a lower one. Some prices may be set automatically. We do not use information about your health or vulnerability, or any other special category information, to set your price.

If a price is set automatically and has a significant effect on you, we will tell you. You can give us your point of view, ask for a member of our team to review the decision and challenge it, by contacting us using the details in section 14. For home insurance, your renewal price will not be higher than the price we would offer a new customer in the same circumstances.

9. International transfers

Some of our service providers are based outside the UK, and your personal information may be processed in the United States or other countries. When this happens, we make sure your information is protected by:

• UK adequacy regulations, which confirm that a country has an adequate level of protection (including the UK-US data bridge, where it applies); or
• a UK-approved contract, such as the International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses.

You can contact us for more information about these safeguards.

10. How long we keep your information

We only keep your personal information for as long as we need it for the purposes we collected it for, as set out in this privacy notice. This includes meeting any legal, accounting, tax or reporting requirements.

To decide how long to keep your information, we consider:

• how much information it is, what kind it is, and how sensitive it is
• the risk of harm if it were used or disclosed without permission
• why we are using it, and whether we can achieve that purpose in another way
• the legal, regulatory and contractual requirements that apply

In general, we follow statutory retention periods, which are the minimum or maximum times the law says certain records must be kept. Sometimes we may need to keep information for longer, for example to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation, to deal with a complaint or dispute, or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims. When this happens, we keep only the information we need, and only for as long as that reason applies.

When we no longer need your personal information, we will securely delete or destroy it. Alternatively, we may anonymise it so that it can no longer identify you. Because anonymised information is not personal information, we may keep and use it for research, analysis and to improve our products and services without telling you further.

11. How we protect your information

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information, including encryption of data in transit, access controls and staff training. Only people who need your information to do their job can access it. We also follow strict security procedures, such as checking your identity when you phone us.

12. Children

Our Service is intended for people aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you think a child has given us their information, please contact us and we will delete it.

13. Your rights

You have the following rights, in certain circumstances:

Right	What it means
Access	Ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
Correction	Ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete.
Erasure	Ask us to delete your information where there is no good reason for us to keep it.
Restriction	Ask us to pause using your information, for example while we look into a concern.
Portability	Ask us to send information you have given us to you or another organisation in a commonly used format.
Object	Object to us using your information based on our legitimate interests, including for AI tools, analytics and analytics assessing risk for pricing. You can always object to direct marketing.
Withdraw consent	Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time. We may not be able to provide certain products or services to you, and we will tell you if this is the case when you withdraw your consent.
Automated decisions	Be told about a significant decision made about you by automated means. (such as a price set automatically), give us your point of view, ask for human review and challenge the decision.

To use any of these rights, email [email protected] or go to the contact us website listed for your brand here in section 1 (Who we are). It is free, unless a request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive, in which case we may charge a reasonable fee or refuse to act on it. We may ask you to confirm your identity. We will respond within one month, or tell you if we need longer (up to two further months for complex requests).

14. Contact us and complaints

If you have a question about this policy, how we use your information, or if you want to make a complaint about how we process your Personal Data, please contact our Data Protection Officer:

• Email: [email protected]
• Post: Data Protection Officer, Hamilton House, 4 Mabledon Place, London, United Kingdom, WC1H 9BB

We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days and tell you the outcome without undue delay.

We would like the chance to help with any concerns before you contact the ICO, so please get in touch with us first.

If you are not happy with our response, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator, at www.ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will always be on this page. If we make material changes, we will post them on this page and let you know by email or by another appropriate method, such as SMS, a message in your customer portal or a notice in our next communication with you.