Privacy Policy
Essentia House resident portal essentiahouse.co.uk
Last updated: 6 September 2026 Version: 1.0
1. Who runs this portal
Bushen Garvie Ltd builds and operates the software behind essentiahouse.co.uk. We provide the platform. We are not your landlord, your letting agent or your managing agent, and we hold no interest in the building.
| Legal entity | Bushen Garvie Ltd |
| Company number | 17433134 |
| Registered address | 66 Paul Street, London, England, EC2A 4NA |
| privacy@bushengarvie.com | |
| Telephone | +44 (0) 7375 564 174 |
2. Who controls your data
Two organisations handle your personal data through this portal, and they carry different responsibilities.
Your landlord or managing agent is the data controller for everything connected to your tenancy: your tenancy agreement, referencing and right to rent checks, rent account and arrears, repair reports, parking allocations, complaints, and any health or vulnerability details you share with them. They decide what to collect, why, and how long to keep it. Their own privacy notice covers that processing, and they will send it to you on request.
We act as their processor for that data. We store it, keep it secure, and make it available in the portal. We follow their written instructions under a data processing agreement, and we never use tenancy data for our own purposes, sell it, or share it with anyone they have not authorised.
We are the controller for a narrow set of data we need to run the platform itself: your login credentials, security and audit logs, technical data from your browser, and any support request you send us directly. Section 4 covers that.
If you want a copy of your data, a correction, or a deletion, ask your landlord or managing agent first. Email privacy@bushengarvie.com if you cannot reach them and we will route your request to the controller within five working days.
3. What flows through the portal
We process the following categories on your landlord's instructions:
- Identity and contact details: name, date of birth, address, email, telephone number, emergency contact
- Tenancy records: agreements and variations, permitted occupiers, deposit details, start and end dates
- Financial records: rent account, payment history, arrears correspondence, and payment confirmations from Stripe
- Repairs: the reports you submit, photographs and videos you upload, appointment times, access arrangements, contractor notes and outcomes
- Parking: vehicle registration mark, make and model, bay allocation, permits, visitor bookings
- Communications: messages you send and receive through the portal
- Health and accessibility details: anything you tell your landlord about a disability, mobility need or vulnerability so they can adjust their service or plan an evacuation
We hold that last category as special category data. We restrict access to it, we do not use it in any analysis, and your landlord decides who sees it.
4. Data we hold as controller
| What | Why | Lawful basis |
|---|---|---|
| Username, encrypted password, multi-factor settings | Authenticating you and stopping unauthorised access | Legitimate interests (platform security) |
| Login times, IP address, device and browser details | Detecting fraud, investigating incidents, fixing faults | Legitimate interests (platform security and reliability) |
| Audit log of actions taken in your account | Producing a reliable record of who did what | Legitimate interests; legal obligation where we must evidence our processing |
| Support requests you send us | Answering you and diagnosing faults | Legitimate interests (supporting the people who use our software) |
| Strictly necessary cookies | Keeping you signed in and holding your session | Legitimate interests; exempt from consent under PECR |
We run no analytics, advertising or tracking cookies on essentiahouse.co.uk.
We assessed our legitimate interests against your rights before relying on them. Email privacy@bushengarvie.com for the assessment.
5. Who we share data with
As processor we share tenancy data only with the recipients your landlord instructs, which normally means their staff, their contractors attending repairs, and their professional advisers.
As controller and as processor we rely on these suppliers:
- Supabase and Lovable, for hosting and database infrastructure
- Stripe, for card and bank payments made through the portal
- Google Workspace, for support email
We also disclose data where the law requires it, where a court or regulator orders it, or where someone's life is at risk.
We do not sell your data and we pass nothing to advertisers.
6. Payments
Payments you make through the portal go to Stripe. Stripe handles your card and bank details directly as a controller in its own right, under its own privacy policy at stripe.com/gb/privacy. We receive a confirmation, an amount, a date and a masked reference. We never see or store your full card number.
7. International transfers
We keep portal data in the UK and the European Economic Area. Stripe and Google process some data in the United States. Where data leaves the UK we use the International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, alongside encryption in transit and at rest.
8. How long we keep it
Your landlord sets the retention periods for tenancy data, and we delete or return it on their instruction. Typical periods run to six years after a tenancy ends, because that matches the limitation period for contract claims.
For the data we control:
| Record | Retention |
|---|---|
| Account credentials | Until your account closes, then 30 days |
| Security and audit logs | 24 months |
| Support correspondence | 24 months from last contact |
| Payment confirmations | 6 years, for accounting purposes |
When our contract with your landlord ends, we delete or return everything in their environment within 30 days.
9. Your rights
You can ask for a copy of your data, a correction, deletion, restriction, portability, or an objection to processing based on legitimate interests. You can withdraw consent where consent is the basis we use.
Send requests about tenancy data to your landlord or managing agent. Send requests about your login, audit logs or support history to privacy@bushengarvie.com. We respond within one month, we may ask you to confirm your identity, and we charge no fee unless a request is excessive or repetitive.
Some rights carry limits. We cannot delete audit logs while they evidence access to another person's data, and your landlord cannot delete records they must keep by law.
Complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk, on 0303 123 1113, or at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF if a response leaves you unhappy.
10. Security
Your portal account uses an individual username and password, and every administrative action leaves an audit record. We encrypt data in transit and at rest, restrict access by role, back up daily, and review access rights regularly. Keep your password to yourself and email privacy@bushengarvie.com if you think someone else has used your account.
We report qualifying breaches to your landlord without undue delay so they can notify the ICO and, where required, you.
11. Automated decisions
The portal makes no automated decisions about you. Where your landlord uses automated referencing or credit scoring, that happens outside this platform and their privacy notice covers it.
12. Children
Your landlord may record the names, dates of birth and emergency contacts of children living in a home. A parent or guardian exercises data protection rights for a child under 13.
13. Changes
We update this policy when the platform or our suppliers change. The version and date at the top show the current edition. We post material changes in the portal 14 days before they take effect.
14. Contact
Bushen Garvie Ltd, 66 Paul Street, London, England, EC2A 4NA privacy@bushengarvie.com +44 (0) 7375 564 174