Privacy Policy

1. Controller

The controller for the processing of personal data on this website is:

For data protection questions you can reach us at info@houselinc.com.

2. Scope of this part

This part applies to visits to the marketing website www.houselinc.com. For use of the HouseLinc app on iOS, Android and on the web at app.houselinc.com, part 2 of this policy applies.

3. Hosting and server log files

This website and our email mailboxes are hosted by IONOS SE, Elgendorfer Straße 57, 56410 Montabaur, Germany. IONOS processes the data on our behalf under a data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR.

When you open the website, the server automatically processes access data transmitted by your browser: IP address, date and time of access, page requested, volume of data transferred, referrer as well as browser and operating system details. This processing is technically necessary to deliver the page and to ensure its stability and security; the legal basis is our legitimate interest under Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR. We do not analyse the log files for advertising or analytics purposes and do not combine them with other data. They are deleted as soon as they are no longer required for these purposes.

4. Contact form

If you use our contact form, we process the details you provide: name, email address, selected topic and your message. We use this information solely to answer your enquiry.

The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR where your enquiry is aimed at a contract, and otherwise our legitimate interest in responding to enquiries under Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR.

Your message reaches us by email and is stored in our mailbox at IONOS until the matter is concluded and no statutory retention obligations stand in the way.

To protect against automated bulk enquiries we limit the number of submissions per IP address. Your IP address is held briefly in the server's memory for this purpose and is not stored permanently. The form also contains a hidden field that only automated scripts fill in.

5. Newsletter

For our German-language newsletter we use Brevo SAS, 7 rue de Madrid, 75008 Paris, France, as a processor; processing takes place on servers within the European Union.

The sign-up form on our newsletter page is embedded directly from Brevo. When you open that page your browser therefore loads resources from Brevo's servers, in the course of which your IP address and technical browser details are transmitted to Brevo.

Sign-up uses the double opt-in procedure: after entering your email address you receive a confirmation email, and only after your confirmation do we add you to the distribution list. We store your email address, the time of sign-up and confirmation, and delivery status information such as whether a message could be delivered.

The legal basis is your consent under Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR. You can unsubscribe at any time via the unsubscribe link in every message or by email to info@houselinc.com; your data is then removed from the distribution list.

6. Cookies and local storage

This website uses only technically necessary cookies and comparable storage techniques, for example to retain your language choice. We use no advertising or tracking cookies, run no third-party analytics and embed no social media plug-ins.

7. Minors

Our services are aimed at adults. The contact form and the newsletter are not intended for persons under 18, and we do not knowingly collect data from minors. If we become aware that such data has been sent to us, we delete it.

8. Partner references

Our partners page contains links to third-party offerings. These are mere references; when you click them you leave our website and the privacy notices of the respective provider apply. We transmit no personal data to our partners in doing so. For individual references we receive a commission if a contract is concluded there; this is recognisable from an identifier parameter in the target address.

9. Your rights and right to lodge a complaint

The rights described in part 2, sections 16 and 17 apply equally to the processing on this website: access, rectification, erasure, restriction, data portability, objection and withdrawal of consent given.

A message to info@houselinc.com is sufficient to exercise them. Independently of this, you can lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority; the authority responsible for us is the Bavarian Data Protection Authority (BayLDA), Promenade 18, 91522 Ansbach, Germany.

1. Controller

The controller for the processing of personal data in the HouseLinc app is Houselinc GmbH, Kaiser-Ruprecht-Str. 6, 63755 Alzenau, Germany, represented by the managing director Florian Zen-Eldin, registered at the Munich Local Court under HRB 307374.

For data protection questions you can reach us at info@houselinc.com.

2. Scope

This part applies to the use of the HouseLinc app on iOS, Android and on the web at app.houselinc.com as well as the associated web.app addresses.

For visits to the marketing website www.houselinc.com, part 1 of this policy applies. The version available in the app is authoritative for the app.

3. What data we process

We process in particular the following categories of personal data.

• —Account data such as your email address and your password in hashed form.
• —Profile data such as your name and voluntary details for the financial profile, for example bank details, tax ID, marital status and income.
• —Property data such as address, purchase details, costs, loans, insurance policies, energy data, meter readings, appointments, documents and photos.
• —Contact details of third parties that you record yourself or import from your device's address book, for example of tenants, tradespeople, service providers or property managers.
• —Tenancy agreement data, receipts and invoices, assets as well as travel and hospitality receipts.
• —Analyses you generate such as PDF reports, for example financial profiles or property exposés.
• —Your subscription status.

If you record data of tenants, service providers or other third parties in the app, you are yourself responsible for ensuring that this processing is permissible under data protection law. HouseLinc merely provides the technical platform for this.

4. Purposes and legal bases

We process your data for the following purposes.

• —To set up your account and provide the core functions of the app, such as property management, document storage and report generation, on the basis of Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR, because the processing is necessary to perform the user agreement.
• —To manage your subscription, i.e. to assign your subscription status to your account and to verify your purchases, on the basis of Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR.
• —For AI-assisted receipt recognition and document matching on the basis of your consent under Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR.
• —For the security and stability of the app, such as crash reports, performance measurement and device integrity checks, on the basis of our legitimate interest under Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR.
• —To process technical log data from our servers in order to provide the app, detect disruptions and prevent misuse, on the basis of our legitimate interest under Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR.
• —To answer your enquiries to our support on the basis of Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR where the enquiry concerns your user agreement, and otherwise on the basis of our legitimate interest under Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR.
• —To fulfil legal retention obligations for payment records from web purchases on the basis of Art. 6 (1) (c) GDPR.

5. Where your data is stored and how it is protected

The data you record in the app, including documents and photos, is stored with Google Cloud in the europe-west3 region in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Our database, file storage and server functions are located there. For sign-in we use Firebase Authentication by Google; in the process, data may also be processed on servers outside the EU (section 9).

Your data is transmitted encrypted via TLS. Stored data is encrypted with AES-256, with the keys managed by Google.

6. Artificial intelligence: receipt scanning and document matching

From the Investor plan onwards, the app offers to read receipts automatically and to assign documents automatically. Use of this function is voluntary, you can switch it off again at any time in the settings, and you can record receipts and documents manually at any time.

The data flow is as follows. Text recognition first takes place locally on your device. The recognised text and, for receipt scanning, additionally an image of the first receipt page are transmitted to a cloud function in the europe-west3 region in Frankfurt so that handwritten details, for example on hospitality receipts, can also be recognised. For automatic document matching, only the recognised text is transmitted, not the document itself. The evaluation is carried out with Google's Gemini 2.5 Flash language model via Vertex AI in the Frankfurt region.

The transmitted image is neither stored nor logged; it exists only for the duration of the evaluation. Metadata is stored, such as the model used, the prompt version, the time, whether an image was transmitted, and your confirmation of the proposed values. The transmitted text itself is not stored permanently. Under the applicable contractual terms for Vertex AI, Google does not use the transmitted data to train its models.

Before the function becomes active we obtain your consent via a dialogue in the app. The proposed values are always suggestions only, which you must review and confirm yourself before saving. In line with the transparency obligations under Article 50 of the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, we inform you in the app that you are interacting with an AI system.

7. Further services and recipients

We use the following service providers to operate the app. We have data processing agreements pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR with our processors.

• —Google Cloud EMEA Limited and Google Ireland Limited respectively for hosting, database, file storage, server functions and sign-in, including sending confirmation and password emails (Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR), as well as for crash and performance analysis (Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR). To protect against misuse, Google checks whether requests come from a genuine app or browser, in the web app using Google reCAPTCHA; in the process Google receives your IP address and technical device or browser information. The web app also loads technically necessary program and font files from Google servers.
• —Google LLC for map display, address search and street views of your properties (Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR). We retrieve address search, street view and map previews via our own servers, so Google learns neither your IP address nor your device. If you open the interactive map of a property, your device loads the map tiles directly from Google; in the process your IP address and the displayed map section are transmitted to Google.
• —RevenueCat, Inc. for managing your subscription (Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR). RevenueCat receives only a pseudonymous user identifier, device type, operating system, the time of last use and the purchase or transaction data, but no email address, no name and no financial, bank or property data from the app. When the plan selection is displayed, your IP address is transmitted to RevenueCat.
• —Stripe Payments Europe Limited for payment processing in the web checkout (Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR).
• —Apple and Google respectively as operators of the app stores for purchases via the App Store or Google Play (Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR).
• —Content delivery networks through which the web app loads technically necessary program libraries quickly and reliably; in the process your IP address is transmitted to the respective provider (Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR).
• —IT service providers who support us in developing, maintaining and operating the app and who may receive access to data to the extent required in each case (Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR).
• —IONOS SE, Elgendorfer Straße 57, 56410 Montabaur, Germany, for our email mailbox in which your enquiries to info@houselinc.com are received (Art. 6 (1) (b) or (f) GDPR).

8. Payments and subscriptions

HouseLinc never receives your payment data such as card numbers or bank details. If you take out your subscription via the Apple App Store or Google Play, Apple or Google respectively is your contracting party for the purchase, and cancellation and refunds are handled through their subscription management. If you take out your subscription via the web checkout, RevenueCat, Inc. and Stripe Payments Europe Limited handle the payment, and we receive only your subscription status and transaction metadata. For details on purpose limitation at RevenueCat, see section 7.

9. Transfers to third countries

Where data is transferred to recipients outside the European Union, we base this on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the respective recipient is certified under it, and additionally on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses. Google LLC and Stripe are certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. For RevenueCat, Inc., based in the USA, we base the transfer on the standard contractual clauses; as RevenueCat receives only a pseudonymous user identifier and subscription data, we have assessed the risk of this transfer in a separate review. For the content delivery networks mentioned in section 7, we rely on the standard contractual clauses or the respective provider's certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

10. Device access and local storage

The app requests access to your camera and to your photo library or files only when you actively wish to upload a receipt or a document. We use Face ID or Touch ID exclusively if you activate the optional app lock in the settings.

If you want to import contacts such as tradespeople or tenants from your device's address book, the app requests read access to your contacts. You select the entries individually; only the selected entries are stored as a contact in your account with name, salutation, company, phone numbers, email address, address and notes. The app does not read your address book in the background, does not write anything back to it and does not synchronise it with our servers. On iOS you can restrict access to individual contacts. Section 3 applies to the third-party contact details you import.

The app schedules reminders of appointments and deadlines, for example meter readings or contract end dates, as local notifications directly on your device. For this, the app requests permission for notifications, on Android additionally permission for exact alarms. No data is transmitted to a notification service or to our servers for this; the content of the reminders comes from your own entries. You can additionally hand appointments over to your device's calendar app; your system calendar then opens with the appointment details, and you confirm the entry there yourself. The app does not read your calendar and does not require calendar permission for this.

If you share documents, reports or contacts from within the app, the app opens your operating system's share dialogue. You choose the recipient yourself; HouseLinc does not learn to whom you pass on content.

On your device the app stores an offline cache of your own data as well as the app lock setting. If you sign out, the offline cache is marked for deletion and removed the next time the app starts. If you delete your account, all local app data is removed.

11. Crash and performance data

For error analysis we use Firebase Crashlytics on iOS and Android. Error messages, stack traces, device type as well as operating system and app version are recorded, but no user ID. This data is stored for 90 days.

For performance measurement we use Firebase Performance on all platforms, including the web app. The duration of the app start and of individual loading processes, response times of network calls as well as device type, operating system and app version are recorded, but no user ID and no content of your data.

12. Technical log data

When our server functions and the web app are accessed, the Google Cloud services we use automatically process technical log data: the IP address of your device, date and time of the request, the function or address called, the status of the response and details of app version and operating system. We use this data exclusively to provide the app, to detect and resolve disruptions and to prevent misuse; we do not analyse it for advertising or analytics purposes and do not combine it with your content. The legal basis is our legitimate interest under Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR. The log data is deleted automatically after 30 days.

13. Contact and support

If you contact us by email at info@houselinc.com, we process your email address, the content of your message and the information you provide to us for processing. Our email mailbox is operated by IONOS SE in Germany. We use this data exclusively to answer your enquiry; the legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR where the enquiry concerns your user agreement, and otherwise our legitimate interest under Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR. We delete the correspondence once your request has been finally dealt with and no statutory retention obligations stand in the way. If you ask us for help in your account as part of support, we access your data only to the extent necessary to handle your request.

14. Partner links

The app contains contact details or links to partners from our network, for example financing, energy, renovation, photography and legal service providers. These are mere links or contact details; when you tap a link you leave the app, and the privacy notices of the respective provider apply. HouseLinc does not transmit any personal data to these partners. For individual references we receive a commission if a contract is concluded with the partner; this is recognisable from an identifier parameter in the target address, which identifies HouseLinc as the origin but contains no information about you.

15. Retention and deletion

We store your data for as long as your account exists. If you delete your account in the app after re-entering your password, your profile, properties, assets, folders, receipts, trips, reports and uploaded files as well as your login account are deleted immediately. Any data contained in backups is removed in the course of the respective backup cycle. Uploaded files are permanently removed as soon as the account is deleted.

After account deletion the following remain: your subscription record with RevenueCat or the respective store under their own retention periods, crash reports already stored until the 90-day period expires, and technical log data until the 30-day period expires. We retain payment records from web purchases for ten years due to statutory retention obligations.

Your own statutory retention obligations, for example for tax-relevant receipts, remain with you. Please therefore export the documents relevant to you before deleting your account.

16. Your rights

Under Articles 15 to 20 of the General Data Protection Regulation you have the right of access, rectification, erasure and restriction of processing of your data as well as the right to data portability. We explain your right to object under Article 21 separately in section 17. Where you have consented to processing, you can withdraw that consent at any time with effect for the future. Automated individual decision-making within the meaning of Art. 22 GDPR does not take place at our company.

To exercise your rights, please contact info@houselinc.com. We will answer your request within one month.

17. Your right to object

You have the right to object at any time, on grounds relating to your particular situation, to the processing of personal data concerning you that we base on our legitimate interest under Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR. This applies in particular to crash and performance data (section 11), technical log data (section 12) and the loading of program libraries via content delivery networks in the web app (section 7).

If you object, we will no longer process the data concerned unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing serves the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

We do not process your data for direct marketing purposes. Should we do so in future, you can object to this at any time without giving reasons; we will then no longer process your data for this purpose.

An email to info@houselinc.com is sufficient for your objection.

18. Right to lodge a complaint

You have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority about our processing of your data. The authority responsible for us is the Bavarian Data Protection Authority (Bayerisches Landesamt für Datenschutzaufsicht), Promenade 18, 91522 Ansbach, Germany. You may also contact any other supervisory authority of your choice.

19. No disclosure for advertising purposes

We do not pass your data to third parties for advertising purposes, do not track your behaviour across different services and use no advertising cookies in the web app. Your browser stores only technically necessary information in order to keep you signed in and to manage your session.

20. Minors

The HouseLinc app is intended for persons aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect data from minors. If we become aware that an account has been created by a minor, we delete the account and the associated data.

21. Changes to this policy

We may adapt this privacy policy, for example if our functions or the legal requirements change. We will inform you about material changes in the app.