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Privacy Policy

Introduction

This privacy policy sets out how we use and protect your personal data. This privacy policy is provided in a layered format so you can click through to the specific areas set out below. Alternatively, you can view the full version of the privacy policy here.

  1. IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND WHO WE ARE (paragraph 1)
  2. TYPES OF PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU (paragraph 2)
  3. SUB PROCESSORS (paragraph 3)
  4. HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL DATA COLLECTED? (paragraph 4)
  5. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA (paragraph 5)
  6. DISCLOSURES OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA (paragraph 6)
  7. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS (paragraph 7)
  8. DATA SECURITY (paragraph 8)
  9. DATA RETENTION (paragraph 9)
  10. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS (paragraph 10)
  11. CONTACT DETAILS (paragraph 11)
  12. COMPLAINTS (paragraph 12)
  13. CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY AND YOUR DUTY TO INFORM US OF CHANGES (paragraph 13)
  14. THIRD PARTY LINKS (paragraph 14)

  1. Important information and who we are

    Privacy policy

    This privacy policy gives you information about how Stairpay collects and uses your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide when you register with us. It details where Stairpay act as a Data Processor and where Stairpay act as a Data Controller. This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

    Stairpay as Controller and Processor

    Stairpay acts as the Data Controller and is responsible for your personal data when we process personal data for our own business purposes, including:

    • Managing and maintaining the Stairpay platform;
    • Improving our services and user experience;
    • Handling direct customer interactions where there is no third party involvement. An example of third party involvement is a staircasing transaction where the third party will be your landlord;
    • Sharing your personal data with our partner suppliers (see section six below) so that you can engage with them to obtain services in relation to staircasing and other property-related activities .

    In all other cases Stairpay is the Data Processor. Where you are a resident, this means that we process your personal data exclusively on behalf of and under the instructions of your landlord who is the Data Controller and has visibility of that personal data . As a result, this privacy policy does not apply to that processing. Instead, the landlord’s privacy policy applies, and we process your personal data in accordance with the instructions of your landlord.

    Where personal data is shared with our partner suppliers, each is an independent controllers and it will process your personal data in accordance with its privacy policy.

    If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights (paragraph 10), please contact the us using the information set out in the contact details section (paragraph 11).

  2. The types of personal data we collect about you

    Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified.

    We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

    • Identity Data includes first name, last name, any previous names, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
    • Contact Data includes billing address, home address, email address and telephone numbers.
    • Transaction Data includes details about your salary, savings and mortgage and payments to and from you and other details of property-related transactions.
    • Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, device ID and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
    • Profile Data includes your username and password, transactions entered into by you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
    • Usage Data includes information about how you interact with and use our website, products and services.
    • Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

    We also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data which is not personal data as it does not directly (or indirectly) reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate individuals' Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature in order to analyse general trends in how users are interacting with our website to help improve the website and our service offering.

    Our calculator and Ask Stairpay, before you create an account

    You can use our staircasing calculator and ask questions in Ask Stairpay without creating an account. Stairpay is the Data Controller for the personal data described below.

    • What we keep. If you ask a question in Ask Stairpay, we keep your questions and our answers exactly as written. If you continue from the calculator to create an account, we keep the figures you entered: your home's value, the share you own, the share you would like to own and your monthly rent. We also keep when you first and last used them.
    • How we recognise your browser. We link this information to a cookie in your browser that holds a random value and nothing else about you. We store only a scrambled (one-way hashed) copy of that value, never the value itself. We set the cookie only when you ask a question or continue from the calculator, never just because you visit a page. Please see our cookie policy for further details.
    • How long we keep it. We delete this information automatically 90 days after you last asked a question or continued from the calculator. Each time you come back and do either, the 90 days start again. The cookie expires at the same time.
    • If you create an account. When you sign up, we ask whether you would like to bring over what you started. If you say yes, your questions, answers and figures are copied into your account, and from then on we keep and use them as part of your account data; we also keep the original record, linked to your account. If you say no, nothing is added to your account and the information is deleted 90 days after you last used it, as above. Either way, we remove the cookie once you have answered.
    • A scrubbed copy of your questions. We also keep a separate copy of each question you ask, with names, email addresses, phone numbers, postcodes and street addresses, amounts of money, long reference numbers (such as National Insurance numbers) and full dates removed. We keep it with the day it was asked (not the time), its topic, how it was answered and which version of Ask Stairpay answered it. It is not linked to you, your browser, your IP address or any account, and we keep it indefinitely so we can see what people ask and improve our answers. The removal is automatic, so it can miss details that do not look like any of these, such as a first name on its own. Please do not include personal details you do not need to.
    • Who answers your questions. Ask Stairpay's answers are written by an AI model, Anthropic's Claude, which we use through Amazon Web Services' Bedrock service. To answer, your question and the earlier messages in the same conversation are sent to it. AWS processes them on our behalf in the UK and the EU only (London, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Milan, Spain, Ireland or Paris), and we keep AWS's logging of these requests switched off, so it does not keep a copy.
    • Preventing misuse. To stop Ask Stairpay and our calculator being overloaded or misused, we count the requests made from each browser and IP address. We store only a scrambled (one-way hashed) version of the IP address or browser, never the address itself. Each count expires no more than 7 days after the last request it counted, and is then deleted.
    • Analytics. If you accept analytics cookies, we use PostHog to understand how visitors use our website. PostHog never receives the text of your questions or our answers, your rent or your home's exact value. It receives counts and categories, such as a question's topic and your home's value as a range, and the shares you entered in the calculator as percentages. If you do not accept analytics cookies, nothing is sent to PostHog.
    • Advertising measurement. If you accept marketing cookies, we use Google Ads to measure whether our adverts lead to people creating a Stairpay account. When you click one of our adverts, Google adds an identifier to the web address, and the Google tag on our website stores it in your browser. If you then create an account, the Google tag in the Stairpay App tells Google that a sign-up happened, so Google can match it to the advert. Google also receives technical information such as your IP address, your browser and the address of the page, without anything you typed into it. We do not send Google your name, email address or anything from your account, and we do not keep the advertising identifier ourselves. If you do not accept marketing cookies, nothing is sent to Google Ads.
    • Personalised adverts. If you also accept personalised adverts, a separate choice, the Google tag tells Google about each page of our website you visit, so Google can show you Stairpay adverts on Google, YouTube and other websites. It sends the same kind of technical information as above, never anything from your Stairpay App account, and we never do this from the Stairpay App. If you do not accept personalised adverts, Google does not use your visits for this.
    • Google is responsible for its own use of this information: see "Third parties that act as separate controllers" in paragraph 3. You can change either choice at any time with "Cookie settings" on our website or in the Stairpay App; see our cookie policy.

  3. Sub Processors

    You authorise Stairpay and our affiliated entities to engage sub-processors to process your data as necessary to provide our Service. A list of current sub-processors is available below. We will notify you of any additions or removals of sub-processors at least 10 days in advance, provided that you have opted to receive such notifications.

    Stairpay shall:

    (i) Ensure that each sub-processor enters into a written agreement containing the protections required by law; and.

    (ii) Remain fully responsible for the compliance of its sub-processors with applicable data protection law.

    Due to confidentiality restrictions, Stairpay may be unable to share sub-processor agreements with you but will provide relevant information upon request where reasonably possible.

    EntityLocationUse
    AWSLondon, UKTo facilitate cloud computing and presenting the Stairpay Solutions
    KlaviyoLondon, UKFor Email Delivery from the Stairpay App
    Google SuiteLondon, UKFor hosting and storing documents, communication and collaboration
    TrueLayerLondon, UKOpen Banking for payment collection and information collation
    AWS BedrockUK and EU (London, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Milan, Spain, Ireland, Paris)To answer questions asked in Ask Stairpay on our website and in the Stairpay App, using Anthropic's Claude AI model. In the app, residents can also ask about their uploaded lease and the details in their account, such as their share, rent, income and mortgage.
    PostHogEUWebsite analytics, only for visitors who accept analytics cookies

    Third parties that act as separate controllers

    If you accept marketing cookies, or personalised adverts, Google Ireland Limited and Google LLC (Ireland and the US) receive the information described under "Advertising measurement" and "Personalised adverts" in paragraph 2, and decide for themselves how to use it, under Google's own privacy policy and its Google Ads controller-to-controller data protection terms. Google, not Stairpay, is responsible for that use. See how Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services.

  4. How is your personal data collected?

    We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

    • Your interactions with us. You may give us your personal data by filling in online forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:

      • create an account on our website;
      • subscribe to our service or publications;
      • request marketing to be sent to you;
      • enter a survey; or
      • give us feedback or contact us.

    • Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.

    • Third parties or publicly available sources. You may give us your personal data by filling in online forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:

      • Technical Data is collected from the following parties:

        • analytics providers such as Google based inside and outside the UK;
        • advertising networks such as Google Ads based inside and outside the UK; and
        • search information providers such as Google Search based inside and outside the UK.
      • Contact and Transaction Data is collected from providers of technical, delivery, and other services such as Stripe based inside and outside the UK; and
      • Identity and Contact Data is collected from data brokers or aggregators such as TrueLayer based inside and outside the UK.
      • Identity and Contact Data is collected from publicly available sources such as the Land Registry based inside the UK.

  5. How we use your personal data

    Legal basis

    The law requires us to have a legal basis for collecting and using your personal data. We rely on one or more of the following legal bases:

    • Performance of a contract with you: Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
    • Legitimate interests: We may use your personal data where it is necessary to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests, for example to prevent fraud and enable us to give you the best and most secure customer experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights (both positive and negative) before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).
    • Legal obligation: We may use your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to. We will identify the relevant legal obligation when we rely on this legal basis.
    • Consent: We rely on consent only where we have obtained your active agreement to use your personal data for a specified purpose, for example if you subscribe to an email newsletter.

    Purposes for which we will use your personal data

    We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use the various categories of your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

    Purpose/UseType of dataLegal basis [and retention period]
    To register you as a new customer(a) Identity
    (b) Contact    		Performance of a contract with you
    To facilitate transactions including:
    (a) Manage payments, fees and charges
    (b) Collect and recover money owed to us    		(a) Identity
    (b) Contact
    (c) Transaction
    (d) Marketing and Communications    		(a) Performance of a contract with you
    (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)
    To manage our relationship with you which will include:
    (a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy
    (b) Dealing with your requests, complaints and queries    		(a) Identity
    (b) Contact
    (c) Profile
    (d) Marketing and Communications    		(a) Performance of a contract with you
    (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
    (c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and manage our relationship with you)
    To enable you to complete a survey(a) Identity
    (b) Contact
    (c) Profile
    (d) Usage
    (e) Marketing and Communications    		(a) Performance of a contract with you
    (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them and grow our business)
    To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)(a) Identity
    (b) Contact
    (c) Technical    		(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise)
    (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
    To deliver relevant website content to you(a) Identity
    (b) Contact
    (c) Profile
    (d) Usage
    (e) Marketing and Communications
    (f) Technical    		Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
    Advertising and conversion measurement: to measure whether our adverts lead to people creating a Stairpay account, so we know whether our marketing works(a) Technical (cookie identifiers, device and browser information)
    (b) Usage (whether an account was created)    		Your consent, given by accepting marketing cookies. You can withdraw it at any time with "Cookie settings". [Cookies last up to 90 days; we keep no advertising identifier ourselves]
    Personalised advertising: to show you Stairpay adverts on Google, YouTube and other websites after you have visited our website(a) Technical (cookie identifiers, device and browser information)
    (b) Usage (the pages of our website you visited)    		Your consent, given by accepting personalised adverts. You can withdraw it at any time with "Cookie settings". [How long Google keeps its data is set by Google]
    To use data analytics to improve our website, products/services, customer relationships and experiences and to measure the effectiveness of our communications and marketing(a) Technical
    (b) Usage    		Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
    To send you relevant marketing communications and make personalised suggestions and recommendations to you about services that may be of interest to you based on your Profile Data(a) Identity
    (b) Contact
    (c) Technical
    (d) Usage
    (e) Profile
    (f) Marketing and Communications    		Necessary for our legitimate interests (to carry out direct marketing, develop our products/services and grow our business)
    To carry out market research through your voluntary participation in surveys(a) ContactNecessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services and to help us improve and develop our products and services).
    To answer your questions in Ask Stairpay, to review the quality of its answers, and to keep your questions, answers and calculator figures so you can bring them into an account(a) Transaction
    (b) Usage
    (c) Technical    		Necessary for our legitimate interests (to provide the calculator and Ask Stairpay you have chosen to use, and to improve them) [kept for 90 days after you last use them, unless you bring them into an account]
    To keep a scrubbed copy of the questions asked in Ask Stairpay, to see what people ask(a) UsageNecessary for our legitimate interests (to improve our answers and guidance) [kept indefinitely, not linked to you]

    Direct marketing

    You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or subscribed to our services and you have not opted out of receiving the marketing.

    We may also analyse your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view as to which services may be of interest to you so that we can then send you relevant marketing communications.

    Third-party marketing

    We will get your express consent before we share your personal data with any third party for their own direct marketing purposes.

    Opting out of marketing

    You can ask us to stop sending you marketing communications at any time by following the opt-out links within any marketing communication sent to you or by contacting us. If you opt out of receiving marketing communications, you will still receive service-related communications that are essential for administrative or customer service purposes.

    Cookies

    For more information about the cookies we use and how to change your cookie preferences, please see cookie policy.

  6. Disclosures of your personal data

    Other than as expressly set out in this privacy policy or as otherwise required or permitted by law, we will not share, sell or distribute any of your personal information without your consent. When using the Stairpay platform, your personal information may be shared with third-party providers who deliver specific services as part of the staircasing process. These providers act as independent Data Controllers, meaning they determine how they process your personal data. You should review their privacy policies for more details on their data processing activities.

    This includes:

    • Mortgage Brokers – If you request mortgage advice or assistance, your information may be shared with brokers to assess financing options.
    • RICS Valuers – If a valuation is required for staircasing, your details may be shared with RICS-accredited surveyors to arrange and conduct the valuation.
    • Conveyancers and Legal Advisors – If you proceed with staircasing, legal professionals may receive your details to handle the transaction.
    • Other Professional Services Providers – Such as Estate Agents or other third parties where requested.

    These service providers operate independently, and we recommend reviewing their privacy policies to understand how they handle your personal data.

    We may also share your personal data with Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or our assets. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.

    We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

  7. International transfers

    Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK to countries which have laws that do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK law, we always ensure that a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by using specific standard contractual terms approved for use in the UK which give the transferred personal data the same protection as it has in the UK. To obtain a copy of these contractual safeguards, please contact us.

    We may transfer your personal data to service providers that carry out certain functions on our behalf. This may involve transferring personal data outside the UK to countries which have laws that do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK law.

    Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK to service providers, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that the following safeguards are in place:

    • We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed by the UK to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data;
    • We may use specific standard contractual terms approved for use in the UK which give the transferred personal data the same protection as it has in the UK.

    If you accept marketing cookies or personalised adverts, Google may process the information described in paragraph 2 in the US. Google relies on the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (the UK-US Data Bridge) and, where that does not apply, the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, to give it the same protection as in the UK.

  8. Data security

    We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

    We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

  9. Data retention

    How long will you use my personal data for?

    We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

    To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

    By law we have to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being customers for tax purposes.

    What we keep when you use our calculator or Ask Stairpay before you create an account, and for how long, is set out in paragraph 2.

    The cookies the Google tag sets for advertising measurement last up to 90 days (see our cookie policy). We do not keep the advertising identifier in our own systems. How long Google keeps its own data is set out in Google's privacy policy.

    In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see [paragraph 10] below for further information.

    In some circumstances we will anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

  10. Your legal rights

    You have a number of rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.

    You have the right to:

    • Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
    • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
    • Request erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
    • Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) as the legal basis for that particular use of your data (including carrying out profiling based on our legitimate interests). In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your right to object.
    • You also have the absolute right to object any time to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (see OPTING OUT OF MARKETING in paragraph 5 for details of how to object to receiving direct marketing communications).
    • Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
    • [Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data (see the table in section 4 for details of when we rely on your consent as the legal basis for using your data) . However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.]

    • Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in one of the following scenarios:

      • If you want us to establish the data's accuracy;
      • Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it;
      • Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
      • You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

    If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.

    No fee usually required

    You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

    What we may need from you

    We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

    Time limit to respond

    We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

  11. Contact details

    If you have any questions about this privacy policy or about the use of your personal data or you want to exercise your privacy rights, please contact us in the following ways:

    • Email address: hello@stairpay.com
    • Postal address: Lawford House, Albert Place, London, England, N3 1QA

  12. Complaints

    You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

  13. Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes

    We keep our privacy policy under regular review. Historic versions can be obtained by contacting us.

    It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us, for example a new address or email address.

  14. Third-party links

    This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.