These terms of use tell you everything you need to know about our services and products. Make sure you take time to read them, and if you have any questions or feedback let us know at hey@habito.com.
We’re an online mortgage broker and home buying service. Our full company name is Hey Habito Ltd. We’re registered in England & Wales with registration number 09384953. Our registered address is C/O 4th Floor Phoenix House, 1 Station Hill, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 1NB.
We’re authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, with the register number 714187.
These terms of use are about our website, and our online mortgage brokerage service (we’ll call this our ‘brokerage’ from now on). If you use our home-buying service Habito Plus, we’ll ask you to sign separate terms and conditions, which will apply alongside these ones. You can also read a bit more about these two services below.
In some of the sections below, we refer to “live chat”. Live chat can be accessed via the speech bubble icon at the bottom right of our home page.
You should also read our privacy policy and cookie policy to understand all your rights and what you’re agreeing to when you use our website.
So you know, when we use the words ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’, or ‘Habito’ in these terms of use, we’re talking about Hey Habito Ltd. And when we say ‘you’ or ‘your’ we’re talking about our customers.
We may change these terms of use at any time, and will let you know when we do. If you don’t agree with the amended terms, you’re always allowed to stop using our site and services at any time. When you do access or use our site, we’ll take that to mean that you accept any changes. If you’d like any previous versions, email us at hey@habito.com.
You should know upfront that our brokerage service can only help UK residents, and we can only help you buy properties registered in the UK.
If you’d like to get a mortgage in a company’s name, we can help you get a buy-to-let mortgage, but not a residential mortgage.
You can set up a free account on our site, with an email and password or magic link, or by using Google or Facebook. If you use a password, keep it safe and don’t share it with anyone else.
If you ever discover or suspect that anyone other than you knows your login details or has accessed your Habito account, change your password straight away. Then let us know by emailing data@habito.com.
If there are any other people who you let access our website through your account, it’s up to you (and them) to make sure that they’re aware of these terms of use and any other applicable terms and conditions, and that they agree and follow them.
We have the right to temporarily suspend or permanently disable your account. We can do this for any reason, for example if you breach any of these terms of use.
Finally, and this should go without saying, but... don’t use our website for anything unlawful or fraudulent. If we think you are, we have the right to suspend or close your account, without giving you advance warning.
We don’t charge you anything to use our brokerage service. It’s free for all of our customers.
As a broker, we get paid a commission by lenders. This commission is a percentage of your mortgage amount, one of your mortgage documents, your ESIS, will tell you exactly how much commission we’ll be paid for your mortgage when it completes.
Your lender might charge you a product fee – that’s a fee some lenders might charge you to get a particular mortgage deal. We’ll let you know about all the costs and fees before you take out your mortgage.
We charge a fee for our home-buying service, Habito Plus. If you’re interested in Plus, you can ask us for a personalised quote. The cost is based on your property value, ownership type and what kind of property survey you want.
Our brokerage gives you access to mortgage advice and a comprehensive range of mortgages. We help you find and apply for a mortgage that suits what you need.
Here’s a list of the lenders we work with – we update this list from time to time. There are a small number of lenders we don’t have access to, but don’t worry, if we find you a great mortgage from one of those lenders, we’ll let you know, so you can go to that lender directly if you like.
Bear in mind that while we work with these lenders, they have terms and conditions you’ll need to agree to if you take out a mortgage with them. This means we’re not responsible for them and how they operate.
Our experts don’t favour one lender over another. We’ll always recommend the most suitable mortgage for your needs and provide an Evidence of Research document to support our recommendation.
After you create an account with us, you can start adding information about yourself to that account. If you start giving us information but don’t finish, we’ll send you a few reminders with tips and advice on how to proceed.
We only provide mortgage advice based on the information you give us about you, your circumstances and your personal preferences. It’s up to you to make sure that the information you give us is honest, accurate and up to date.
If your circumstances change, you’ll need to let us know so that we can notify your chosen lender as soon as possible.
When we give you a mortgage recommendation, we’ll send you two documents:
Take the time to review and understand these documents so you’re as informed as you can be. If you have any questions, you can ask your Habito expert.
Once we’ve advised you on what mortgage is the best fit for you, our Mortgage Expert will complete an application to a chosen lender on your behalf and help you through the process online. You’ll need to provide us with supporting evidence (for example, ID documents and bank statements) as part of your mortgage application.
We don’t provide execution-only mortgages. Execution-only is when you choose a mortgage yourself, without our advice, and we just help you apply.
We’ll keep you updated and informed as your application progresses, via live chat, however other communication methods such as email, text, phone call or letter may be used and are available on request.
If you're purchasing or remortgaging, you will need a solicitor or conveyancer as part of your mortgage application. It’s your responsibility to give them and your estate agent the information they need about the property you’re buying and/or selling, your mortgage and your lender. If you’re using Habito Plus, we can help you with most of that. In most cases you will not require a solicitor for a Product Transfer (a new rate with your existing lender).
By using Habito you agree that we can act on your behalf in liaising with mortgage lenders (and any other third parties) as part of the application process.
We’ll let you know, usually on live chat, once we’ve submitted your mortgage application. We’ll stay in touch with your lender to answer their questions and chase down updates. We’ll do this until your mortgage completes (that’s when the lender releases the money for your mortgage for a purchase or remortgage, or when the new rate is applied on a Product Transfer).
We can’t guarantee your mortgage application will be approved by the lender. Even if you get a mortgage offer, we’re not responsible for making sure you actually get that mortgage (you or the lender may decide not to progress with it). Each lender will have their own terms and conditions, which might allow them to withdraw your mortgage offer. They could do this if they’re made aware of information about you that affects their decision to lend to you. We don’t have control or responsibility over other lenders’ decisions or terms.
You might decide not to go ahead with your mortgage application. If that happens, you can ask us to withdraw it.
Completion is when ownership is transferred from the seller to you, and you get the keys to your new home! When you complete as a Habito customer, we reserve the right to be super happy for you.
Towards the end of your initial period, we’ll remind you to switch mortgages to avoid slipping onto your lender’s standard variable rate.
To help us give you accurate advice, make sure the information in your Habito account is up to date.
You can withdraw your mortgage application at any time before you complete (when the lender releases the money for your mortgage, or a new rate is applied on a Product Transfer). To do that, talk to us on live chat or call 0330 223 0196.
If you would like to delete your account, you can send in your request via your live chat or email to deletions@habito.com (please make sure to include the email address you signed up with if it is different to the one you are using).
If you do withdraw, you won’t be able to get back any non-refundable fees you’ve already paid to the lender. You should get back any refundable fees from your lender, though. Habito isn’t responsible for refunding you any fees.
If you withdraw after you’ve exchanged contracts with your seller, bear in mind you might not get your deposit back.
If we’re not able to go through with your mortgage application, we’ll let you know at the earliest possible opportunity.
Here are a few examples of reasons we might decide not to go ahead:
We’re allowed to withdraw or suspend our brokerage services at any time, for any reason. If that ever happens and you have an account with us, we’ll contact you to let you know. We’ll do our best to let you know as soon as we can. That said, depending on the circumstances and whether they’re beyond our control, we might need to do it without notice.
In some places on our website, we link to other websites (for example, as a reference, or to point you in a helpful direction). We try our best to keep these links up to date. But since we don’t own or run those websites, we can’t accept any responsibility or liability for their content, use, or availability, and we can’t guarantee their accuracy.
We do our best to regularly review our website to make sure it’s up to date. If you notice any content that’s inaccurate, please let us know at hey@habito.com.
We might have material on our website that’s been provided by third parties – non-Habito people or organisations. If we do, we can’t accept responsibility or liability for its accuracy.
Everything on our website that’s not a human mortgage expert is there to help give you general information and context. You shouldn’t rely on it for specific, personal advice – that’s what our human experts are there for.
We can’t guarantee that our site or anything on it will always be available or be uninterrupted. We do have backup plans to get the site working again if it goes down, so we can keep that downtime to a minimum.
You can see what data we collect about you, and exactly what we do with it, in our privacy policy.
By visiting our website, creating a Habito account and entering your personal data, you agree that we can collect, process, and store your data in accordance with our privacy policy.
We’re registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO is an independent authority set up to protect the public’s data rights. Our registration number is ZA153186.
If something’s gone wrong for you, let us know – so we can try to fix it or make it up to you if possible, and so we can learn and improve.
You can make a complaint in any of these ways:
- Live chat from your Habito account
- Call 0330 223 0996
- Email complaints@habito.com
- Write to: Habito, WeWork, Moor Place, 1 Fore Street Avenue, London, EC2Y 9DT
Give us as much detail as you can about what happened, and let us know the best way to get back to you.
We aim to get back to you within 5 working days – either with a solution or to explain next steps – then send you a formal, written response within 8 weeks. This is called a 'final response letter'.
If, for whatever reason, we can’t do it in 8 weeks, we’ll let you know and keep you up to date with our best guess of a timeline.
If you’re unhappy with the outcome or you think there’s something we’ve missed, let us know and we’ll review your complaint again.
If you’re not happy after that, you can ask the Financial Ombudsman Service to help you resolve the complaint. They’re a free, unbiased service that sorts out complaints between financial businesses and customers. Find out more and contact them directly.
If you’d like to go to the Financial Ombudsman Service, you should contact them within 6 months of our final response letter, or eight weeks from when you originally sent your complaint (whichever is sooner). That’s because after that, they need to get our permission to consider the complaint.
If you don’t have a complaint but you’d like to give us feedback, you can get in touch either over live chat, or by emailing us at feedback@habito.com. We want to hear it all – good, bad and ugly.
Just get in touch with us through live chat or complaints@habito.com.
We are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) for the regulated advice we provide on your home (either one that you live in currently, or one you are looking to buy and live in), which means that if we are unable to meet our liabilities, you may be protected by the scheme.
Mortgages – up to £85,000 per eligible person, per firm.
For further information, see www.fscs.org.uk
Everything on our website is our intellectual property – we own it, and everything to do with its content. This includes, but isn’t limited to, copyright works and trademarks, whether they’re formally registered or not.
You’re allowed to print or download anything from our site for your personal use. We’d find it pretty flattering, to be honest. But you’re not allowed to modify anything you’ve printed or downloaded. And you’re not allowed to use it for any reason other than personal use. That applies to everything on our site, including text, illustrations, photographs, graphics, video and audio.
We’ve written these terms of use based on the law in England and Wales. So if there are any legal disputes about them, those will be resolved in a court in England or Wales. That also applies to non-contractual disputes – any dispute between us about anything not covered by these terms of use.
In these terms of use, a third party is anyone other than you or us. There’s a law called the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999, which may allow a third party to enforce the terms of a contract. This law doesn’t apply to these terms of use.
These terms of use are an offer to act on your behalf to help you arrange and administer your mortgage, and act for you in other way in connection with your mortgage. When you tell us to do any of these things, we’ll take that to mean that you’ve accepted our offer to act on your behalf. We’ll act for you on the basis of these terms of use.
These terms of use make up the entire agreement between you and us for our brokerage service. Anything we might have agreed before or outside these terms of use – whether in writing or spoken, whether it was implied or explicit – doesn’t form part of the agreement between us, and is overridden by these terms of use.
We might need to assign or transfer these terms of use to another company – for example if we wanted to assign them to another Habito company, or if we were bought by a different company. If we do, this won’t affect your rights or our obligations to you laid out in these terms of use.
If you have an issue or concern with anything in these terms of use, let us know so we can try and address it. You can get in touch by emailing hey@habito.com.
Terms of use last updated: 27th February 2024
