Who we are
NewHomeSearch is part of HomePortfolio HQ Limited, which runs newhomesearch.co.uk and decides how the information on this page is used (the controller, in data protection law). NewHomeSearch is a trading name of HomePortfolio HQ Limited, registered in England and Wales, company number 14708415. Registered office: 2 Buttercup Drive, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE15 9FW.
Write to [email protected] about anything here.
Without an account
A search or a tool keeps nothing about you. What you type into a search travels in the page address and is worked out on the spot. Your own figures in a tool (an income, a deposit, savings) never go into the address: they stay in your browser, for the tab you are using, so the other tools can start from them.
If you share a tool's result and tick “Include my figures”, we keep those figures with the link for 90 days and then delete them; you can stop the link sooner. We do not keep who shared it.
If you ask the search box a question, we keep that conversation: what you asked, our answers, and the facts you gave it (a place, a budget, an income or a deposit, for example), so you can carry on where you left off. It is kept under a visitor session, not an account, and deleted after 90 days; if you sign in or create an account, it moves into your account. A model from Anthropic writes the answers, so what you type in a conversation is sent to Anthropic to answer it.
We count how the tools are used, as daily totals that identify no one: no cookie, no identifier, no IP address, and never a figure you type. The cookies page says exactly what is counted.
If you say yes to analytics cookies, Google Analytics records the pages you visit here, how you arrived, your kind of device and the area you are in, so we can see what helps buyers. It is told a page's path, never what you typed into a search or a tool, never your position, and never who you are. If you say no, or do not answer, it is not loaded at all. The cookies page says exactly what it records, and is where you change your answer.
If you use NewHomeSearch through an AI assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT (the assistants page says how), your conversation stays with the assistant's provider, under its own privacy policy. We see only the questions the assistant sends us, answer each one, and keep no record of who asked. Each request is logged with the tool, how long it took and its inputs, with every money figure, age and free-text question left out and a full postcode cut to its district; calculator use is counted with the tools' daily totals.
Like every website, our servers see each request (the address of the page, the time, your IP address and your browser's name). We use these logs only to keep the site secure and to find faults, and they are rotated away automatically.
With an account
- Your email address, and your password, which is stored only as a one-way hash we cannot read.
- If you sign in with Google: the name, email address and account identifier Google shares, and the address of your Google profile picture.
- What you save: homes, developments, searches (with the sentence you typed), lists and the notes you add.
- If you choose to keep them, the answers you give the tools (your income, your deposit, whether you are a first-time buyer), so they follow you between pages.
- Your conversations with the search box, which you can rename or delete on your account page.
- Whether you have asked for emails from us.
Why we use it
- To provide the account you asked for (the contract between us).
- To keep the site and your account secure (our legitimate interest).
- To send you news or alerts, only if you have said yes (your consent, which you can withdraw at any time).
- To see how the site is used, with Google Analytics, only if you have said yes to analytics cookies (your consent, which you can withdraw on the cookies page at any time).
We never sell your information, and we never pass it to housebuilders, estate agents or lenders.
Where it is kept, and who helps us
Our servers and database are in a Hetzner data centre in Helsinki, Finland, inside the European Union. These companies process information for us, under contract, only to provide their service:
- Hetzner Online: the servers and the database.
- Cloudflare: delivers the site and protects it from attacks; every request passes through it.
- Resend: sends account emails (confirming your address, resetting your password) and the new-home emails you ask for on a saved search.
- Google: signs you in, only if you choose to sign in with Google, and measures how the site is used (Google Analytics), only if you say yes to analytics cookies.
- Anthropic: writes the search box's answers. It receives what you type in a conversation and the facts the site looks up to answer it.
- Voyage AI: may receive the words of a wish you give the search box (“a south-facing garden”, say), to find the homes whose builders describe it.
Cloudflare, Resend, Google, Anthropic and Voyage AI may process information outside the UK, under the safeguards UK data protection law requires for such transfers.
How long we keep it
Your account and everything saved in it stay until you delete them. When an account is deleted it leaves the live database at once, and the nightly backups within 14 days.
Google Analytics keeps what it records for 14 months, then deletes it.
Your rights
You can ask to see what we hold about you, to correct it, to have it deleted, to take a copy with you, or to object to how we use it. Write to [email protected] from the address on your account and we will reply within a month. To delete your account, write to the same address.
If you are not happy with our answer, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.
Cookies
We set cookies to keep you signed in, to keep a conversation with the search box yours, and to remember your answer about analytics cookies; Google Analytics sets its own only if you say yes. The cookies page lists each one, what the site keeps in your browser, and where you change your answer.