Homes2Rent Limited (‘Homes2Rent)
(registered in England with number 04255833)
1. Who we are
In these Terms, ‘Group’, ‘We’, ‘Us’ and ‘Our’ mean Homes2Rent Limited (Homes2Rent), a company that is part of the National Residential Landlords Group of companies, a membership organisation which represents and supports private residential landlords in the UK. It comprises inter alia:
- National Residential Landlords Association – a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee (registered in England under number 12187275);
- Homes2Rent Limited – a company limited by shares (registered in England under number 04255833);
- LPTE Limited – a share company which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the NRLA (12249799).
The registered office for these companies is at 212 Washway Road, Manchester, England M33 6RN.
2. Website Terms of Use
These terms and conditions (together with the documents referred to on it) set out the terms of use on which you may make use of our Homes2Rent website at http://homes2rent.org.uk/ and its associated portal http://portfolio.nrla.org.uk/ which are run by us (‘the websites’).
Please read these terms of use carefully before you start to use the website. By using it, you indicate that you confirm that you are aged 18 years or older, accept these terms of use and that you agree to abide by them. If you do not agree to these terms of use, please refrain from using our website.
3. Purpose of the website
The Homes2Rent website and service has been developed to help prospective tenants find and let suitable properties in England or Wales offered for rent by NRLA members. The service if offered free-of-charge but certain additional services may be charged for, these include but are not limited to:
- Tenant referencing
- Other commercial services provided by 3rd parties
The cost of each of these and any additional terms and conditions associated with their use will be displayed clearly on the websites.
4. Accessing our website
When using the websites as a user or tenant, you must comply with the conditions below and also take note our Privacy Notice that collectively form the whole agreement between you and NRLA. A separate set of terms and conditions exist for landlords.
Access to the Homes2Rent website is restricted to those who accept these terms and conditions with the purpose of using the website to find a rental property, communicate with prospective landlords and establish a tenancy.
Access to our website is permitted on a temporary basis, and we reserve the right to withdraw or amend the service we provide on our website without notice (see below). We will not be liable if for any reason our website is unavailable at any time or for any period.
If you choose, or you are provided with, a user identification code or membership number, security code or password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential, and you must not disclose it to any third party. We have the right to disable any code or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time. You must notify us immediately of any suspected or actual unauthorised use of your access codes. You are responsible for making all arrangements necessary for you to have access to our website.
5. Using our website
You may use our website only for lawful purposes. You may not use our website:
You may use our website only for lawful purposes. You may not use our website:
- In any way that breaches any applicable local, national or international law or regulation.
- In any way that is unlawful or fraudulent or has any unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect.
- For the purpose of harming or attempting to harm minors in any way.
- To transmit, or procure the sending of, any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material or any other form of similar solicitation (spam), or for your own commercial or business purposes.To knowingly transmit any data, send or upload any material that contains viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time-bombs, keystroke loggers, spyware, adware or any other harmful programs or similar computer code designed to adversely affect the operation of any computer software or hardware.
You also agree not to:
- Any information you provide on this website is accurate and reliable to the best of your knowledge (this includes all personal information, contact details and information related to property listings)
- Impersonate others or create false accounts or adverts on the website
- Do anything to interfere with other users’ access to the website
- Attempt to reverse compile, disassemble, reverse engineer or otherwise reduce to human-perceivable form all or any part of the Website
- Access, monitor or copy any content or information of the Website using any robot, spider, scraper or other automated means or any manual process for any purpose without our express written permission
- Copy, publish or otherwise make available to third parties any of the content or information from the service including trademarks and any images or designs used on the Online Platform, except for record keeping, compliance with the law or local or regulatory requirements, providing materials in support of an application for a landlord licence or seeking professional advice
- Attempt to decipher any transmissions to or from the Website
- Reproduce, duplicate, copy or re-sell any part of our website in contravention of the provisions of our website terms of use
- Access without authority, interfere with, damage or disrupt:
- any part of our website
- any equipment or network on which our website is stored
- any software used in the provision of our website, or
- any equipment or network or software owned or used by any third party
- Infringe our or any of our third-party licensor’s Intellectual Property Rights or those of any other third party in relation to your use of the Website or service
- Reproduce any of the Website in any other work or publication in any medium without our consent
- Illicitly attempt to obtain, or assist third parties in obtaining access to the Website
- Remove any copyright or other proprietary notices contained on the Website.
6. Uploading or posting material to our website
Whenever you make use of a feature that allows you to upload material to our website, such as uploading photos or documents, or to make contact with other users of our website, you must comply with the content standards set out herein. You warrant that any such contribution does comply with those standards, and you indemnify us for any breach of that warranty. You also warrant that you have obtained the consent of any person whose personal data forms part of the material posted.
Any material you upload or post to our website will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary, and we have the right to use, copy, distribute and disclose to third parties any such material for any purpose. You grant other users of the website a non-exclusive license to view any material you post or upload to the website. We also have the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any material posted or uploaded by you to our website constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights, or of their right to privacy.
7. Acceptable Use Policy
We require that any and all material which you contribute to our websites (‘contributions’), and to any Interactive Services associated with it must comply with the following Acceptable Use Policy.
Contributions (in whole or in part) must:
- Comply with our Code of Practice.
- Be accurate (where they state facts).
- Be genuinely held (where they state opinions).
- Comply with applicable law in the UK.
Contributions must not:
- Contain any material which is defamatory of any person.
- Contain any material which is misleading or unreliable.
- Contain any material which is obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory.
- Promote discrimination of any form including that based on age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy & maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.
- Infringe any copyright, database right or trademark of any other person.
- Be likely to deceive any person.
- Be made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence.
- Promote any illegal activity.
- Be threatening, abusive or invade another’s privacy, or cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety.
- Be likely to harass, upset, embarrass alarm or annoy any other person.
- Be used to impersonate any person, or to misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person.
- Give the impression that they emanate from us, if this is not the case.
- Advocate, promote or assist any unlawful act such as (by way of example only) copyright infringement or computer misuse.
- Contain any content which results in NRLA being in breach of the law.
You accept full liability to any third party for the content or accuracy of any materials posted by you or any other user of our website. We have the right to remove any material or posting you make on our website if, in our opinion, such material does not comply with the content standards herein.
We reserve the right to take down property adverts if:
- We believe that there is abuse of the system
- If the adverts are generating a larger than expected volume of applicants
- If we believe that the property has already been let
- If we are unable to establish contact with the landlord
- If we believe that the property does not meet the legal standards required to rent a property e.g., the EPC has lapsed
8. Support Level Agreement
We will endeavour to deliver the following levels of support to the users of our websites:
- Respond to help requests and emails within 1 working day (9am – 5pm Monday – Friday
- Offer a complaints process which aims to investigate and respond to any complaint within 10 working days
- If we are unable to resolve your complaint satisfactorily, we will provide details of any Tribunal or redress scheme to which you can refer the case
9. Holding Deposits
Homes2Rent does not accept holding deposits, these must be agreed and managed between you, the prospective tenant and the landlord of the property you have made an offer on. The Landlord may require you to provide a holding deposit whilst your application is being processed and references are sought. This holding deposit may be up to the equivalent of 1 weeks’ rent.
If a holding deposit is arranged and accepted by the landlord and we are advised accordingly by the landlord, then the property advert can be suspended while the necessary checks are made. You will not be able to progress with the application until this step has been completed.
Homes2Rent or the NRLA do not handle holding deposits and we do not accept any responsibility or liability for the management of these. If you decide not to progress with the offer, or the referencing proves unsatisfactory, then the landlord is required by law to return the holding deposit to the applicant subject to certain conditions which you should understand and agree with the landlord prior to paying a holding deposit.
10. Tenant referencing
Once you have accepted made an offer, the NRLA recommend that a landlord reference all tenant(s) using a tenant referencing services provided by the NRLA, or using independent 3rd parties, to provide some assurance your background and ability to pay. The referencing process can take as little as one working day to undertake but could be longer, depending on the depth of the checks and cooperation of your prospective tenants, guarantors (if required) and referencing points (e.g. tenants’ employers).
11. Tenancy Agreements
Any acceptance by the landlord of a tenant’s offer (as described under Holding Deposits section above) will be subject to a contract, usually known as an Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreement or AST. Introduced in the Housing Act 1988, this is the default type of tenancy if you are renting out a property to an individual as their main home in England and Wales (although Wales propose to change to an occupation contract later in 2022).
All tenants on an AST are jointly and severally liable for the tenancy agreement. This means they share responsibility for the entire rent and any damage caused through a breach of their tenancy agreement. This tenancy type is usually used by tenants that know each other well. If the intended occupants do not know each other well, then the landlord may have let the property as Housing in Multiple Occupation (an HMO) and so you should expect to see a room-only AST instead – you should understand these different types of tenancy and which applies to the property you are interested in – see here for further information.
Homes2Rent recommends that the landlord uses the NRLA’s tried and tested ASTs as the basis for the agreements with the prospective tenant(s), however they may use different agreements or add further clauses to the agreement to customise it to their situation or property restrictions e.g. leasehold requirements and so you and any other prospective tenant must be sure to understand the agreement before you sign it. The NRLA does not have any involvement with any of the additional terms included on the standard AST agreement. We do however check that they are legally acceptable.
The contract is formed between you and the landlord when you have both signed and exchanged the tenancy agreement.
12. Tenancy deposits
Since April 2007 all landlords who take a deposit from their tenant on an Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST) in England and Wales must comply with the tenancy deposit protection legislation. This means they must:
- Protect your deposit with a government approved scheme within 30 calendar days of receiving it from the tenant.
- Provide you with the prescribed information within the same 30-day deadline.
The NRLA provide access to two of the scheme providers on its website and they offer choices of custodial or insurance-based schemes.
13. Rent Payments
It is your responsibility to pay your rent, as per the schedule and period set out in the tenancy agreement. The Homes2Rent accept no liability for the late or incorrect payment of rent by your tenants.
14. Personal Data
The NRLA acts as the Data Controller for the personal data entered into the Portfolio service. In order for us to provide the services to you, we will on occasion transfer certain personal data to you, for example the personal data of the landlord.
Please see our Privacy Notice for more information on how we manage your personal information and the personal information entrusted to us through the operation of the service.
15. Redress Schemes
All property agents who carry out estate, lettings and property management work, have a legal responsibility to belong to a redress scheme and, if at any point, you feel the service we have provided to you falls short of what is expected, you may be able to raise a complaint. Homes2Rent are registered with the Property Redress Scheme, provided for us by Hamilton Fraser Insurance. For information on how the scheme works, see here.
16. Suspension and termination
We will determine, in our discretion, whether there has been a breach of this acceptable use policy through your use of our websites. If a breach of this policy has occurred, we may take such action as we deem appropriate.
Failure to comply with this acceptable use policy constitutes a material breach of the terms upon which you are permitted to use our websites, and may result in our taking all or any of the following actions:
- Immediate, temporary or permanent withdrawal of your right to use our website.
- Immediate, temporary or permanent removal of any posting or material uploaded by you to our website.
- Issue of a warning to you.
- Legal proceedings against you for reimbursement of all costs on an indemnity basis (including, but not limited to, reasonable administrative and legal costs on a solicitor and client basis) resulting from the breach.
- Further legal action against you.
- Disclosure of such information to regulatory and/or law enforcement authorities as we reasonably feel is necessary.
We may take any of the above actions in respect of registered members in accordance with the membership terms and conditions.
We exclude liability for actions taken in response to breaches of this acceptable use policy. The responses described in this policy are not limited, and we may take any other action we reasonably deem appropriate.
17. Intellectual property rights
We or our licensors are the owners or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our website and in the material published on it, unless the content is otherwise identified as Crown Copyright or similar. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.
You may print off one copy and may download extracts, of any page(s) from our website for your personal reference and you may draw the attention of others to material posted on our website.
You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.
Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of material on our website must always be acknowledged.
You must not use any part of the materials on our website for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors.
If you print off, copy or download any part of our website in breach of these terms of use, your right to use our website will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.
18. Overseas jurisdictions
We have used reasonable endeavours to ensure that the website complies with UK laws, but cannot ensure that it is appropriate or available for use in every territory outside the UK. Those who visit the website from other territories are responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. If your use of the website is contrary to any applicable law in your jurisdiction, you are not authorised to use the website and must exit immediately.
19. Reliance on information posted
All content published on our website is published in good faith, however, we do not guarantee that the information contained on our website is accurate, verified or complete. We cannot provide any guarantee regarding the integrity of the information supplied on this website or by its users. All such content is provided on an “as is” basis, and we disclaim all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on such materials or for any damages resulting therefrom by any visitor to our website (including registered members), or by anyone who may be informed of any of its contents.
20. Website functionality and accessibility
We do not guarantee that the functions or materials accessible from or contained in the website will be uninterrupted or error-free, that defects will be corrected, or that the website or the server that makes it available are free of viruses or faults.
You are responsible for ensuring that your computer system meets all relevant technical specifications necessary to use the website and is compatible with the website. You are also responsible for implementing sufficient procedures and virus checks to satisfy your requirements.
21. Our website changes regularly
We aim to update our website regularly and may change the content at any time. If the need arises, we may suspend access to our website, or close it indefinitely. Any of the material on our website may be out of date at any given time, and we are under no obligation to update such material.
22. Our liability
Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information published on our website; however, we cannot accept liability for errors and omissions. In circumstances where you suffer loss or damage arising out of or in connection with any of the services offered by us or third-party organisations through our websites or otherwise (whether by virtue of being a member or not), to the extent permitted by law, we, other members of our group of companies and third parties connected to us accept no liability for this loss or damage and hereby expressly exclude:
- All conditions, warranties and other terms which might otherwise be implied by statute, common law or the law of equity.
- Any liability for any direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage incurred by any user in connection with our website or in connection with the use, inability to use, or results of the use of our website, any websites linked to it and any materials posted on it, including, without limitation any liability for:
- loss of income or revenue
- loss of business
- loss of profits or contracts
- loss of anticipated savings
- loss of data
- loss of goodwill
- wasted management or office time, and
- any other loss or damage of any kind, however arising and whether caused by tort (including negligence), breach of contract or otherwise, even if foreseeable.
This does not affect our liability for death or personal injury arising from our negligence, nor our liability for fraudulent misrepresentation or misrepresentation as to a fundamental matter, nor any other liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.
Notwithstanding the above, if we are liable to you for any reason, our liability will be limited to £100. This limit does not apply to any liability we may have for death or personal injury resulting from our negligence or from our fraudulent misrepresentation as to a fundamental matter. These terms and conditions do not and shall not affect your statutory rights as a consumer.
23. Indemnification
You agree that you indemnify Homes2Rent for any loss, claims, actions or proceedings that may be brought against us as a result of a breach of clause 5. You further agree that Homes2Rent may take legal action or any other measures we may deem necessary at our sole discretion if you breach clause 5, and that you will be liable for any legal or enforcement costs reasonably incurred by Homes2Rent in relation to such a breach.
24. Information about you
We hold and process information about you which you provide to us or which we collect from you in accordance with our Privacy Notice. By providing us with such personal information (whether via our website, email or otherwise), you consent to such processing and you warrant that all data provided by you is accurate.
25. Cookie Policy
We use cookies (small text files which we and other website operators store on your computer or device when you visit our website) to deliver a better and more personalised interaction. They enable us to recognise you when you return to our website, store information about your preferences and improve the way your searches are processed. They also enable us to generate statistics about the number of visitors we have and how they use our website and the internet. You can set your browser to reject our cookies if you wish (you should consult your browser help section for details); this might restrict your use of our website and other websites. For more information about cookies, please see our Cookie Policy.
26. Viruses, hacking and other offences
You must not misuse our website by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our website, the server on which our website is stored, or any server, computer or database connected to our website. You must not attack our website via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of-service attack.
By breaching this provision, you may commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities, and we will cooperate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of any breach of this provision, your right to use our website will cease immediately.
We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a distributed denial-of-service attack, viruses or other technologically harmful material that may infect your computer equipment, computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to your use of our website or to your downloading of any material posted on it, or on any website linked to it.
27. Linking to and from our website
You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it, but you must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.
Our website must not be framed on any other website, nor may you create a link to any part of our website other than the home page without our express permission. We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice. The website from which you are linking must comply in all respects with the content standards set out herein.
Where our website contains links to other websites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for your information only. We have no control over the contents of those websites or resources and accept no responsibility for them or for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them.
28. Jurisdiction and applicable law
The English courts will have exclusive jurisdiction over any claim arising from or related to, a visit to our website although we retain the right to bring proceedings against you for breach of these conditions in your country of residence or any other relevant country. These terms of use are governed by English law.
29. Trademarks
The NRLA and the accompanying logo, the Homes2Rent logo and all other NRLA trade names (including other trademarks in the group), logos or project names are our registered or unregistered trademarks and/or other intellectual property of NRLA or third parties. Except as permitted by virtue of being a registered member as a benefit of membership, you may not copy, use or reproduce these without our written consent.
30. Variations
We may revise these terms of use at any time by amending this page. You are expected to check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we made, as they are binding on you. Some of the provisions contained in these terms of use may also be superseded by provisions or notices published elsewhere on our website.
31. Your concerns
If you have any concerns about material which appears on our website, please contact enquiries@homes2rent.org.uk.