What may be listed, how people are expected to behave, and what we do when those expectations are not met.
Last Updated: August 01, 2026List only what you are entitled to sell or let, describe it truthfully, keep payments on the Platform, and treat other people decently. This page sets out the detail, and what we do when it is not followed.
This policy applies to everyone who uses The Homes Lab: buyers, renters, sellers, landlords, professionals, freelancers, suppliers and anyone browsing the site. It applies to listings, messages, reviews, community posts, uploaded files and anything else you put on the Platform.
It sits alongside our Terms of Service. Where the Terms set out the agreement between us, this page sets out the conduct we expect and what we will do about it when the expectation is not met.
You may not list, offer or advertise any of the following on The Homes Lab:
This list describes the kinds of things that are not allowed. It is not exhaustive, and something not named here can still be removed if it is plainly against the spirit of this policy.
A listing must describe what is actually being offered. In particular you may not:
If you present yourself as an architect, engineer, contractor, surveyor or any other professional, the qualifications, registrations and experience you state must be true and current. Do not claim membership of a body you do not belong to, and do not use another person’s registration number.
Where the law requires a licence or registration to offer a service, offering it here without one is a breach of this policy as well as of that law.
Where a transaction is arranged through the Platform, it must be paid for through the Platform. You may not ask a customer to pay you directly in order to avoid our commission, and you may not use listings, messages or reviews to advertise a way of paying that bypasses us.
This is not only about our fee. A payment made through the Platform is one we hold, can trace, and can return to the customer if something goes wrong. A payment made outside it has none of those protections for either party, and we cannot help with it.
You may also not use the Platform to move money for its own sake, to test stolen cards, or to disguise the source of funds.
Do not harass, threaten, defame or abuse anyone on the Platform. Do not post content that is obscene, or that attacks a person or group on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability or any similar ground.
Do not publish another person’s private information – identity documents, financial details, a home address that is not part of a listing – without their consent. Do not send unsolicited bulk messages.
Give accurate information when you register and when you apply to sell, and keep it up to date. Do not impersonate another person or business. Do not hold more than one account in order to evade a suspension, inflate a reputation, or bid on your own listing.
Identity documents you upload must be your own and genuine. Submitting a forged or borrowed document is a serious breach and we will act on it without warning.
Do not attempt to access accounts, data or systems that are not yours. Do not probe or test our security without our written agreement, scrape the site at scale, interfere with its operation, or upload anything designed to damage a system or a user’s device.
If you find a security weakness, please tell us rather than use it. We would far rather hear from you.
What we do depends on what happened, and whether it looks like a mistake or a deliberate act. We may take any of the following steps, and we do not have to take them in order:
Where we hold money that belongs to you and we are not returning it to a customer, it stays yours. A suspension does not transfer your balance to us. See the Dispute Resolution Policy for how held money is dealt with.
If we take action against your account we will tell you what rule we relied on, unless telling you would prejudice an investigation or we are prevented by law. You may respond, and we will look again.
Every listing, profile and post on the Platform carries a report option. Use it and tell us what is wrong and why – the more specific you are, the faster we can act. Reports reach an administrator, not the person you are reporting.
If the matter concerns money, open a support ticket from your account instead so it can be tied to the transaction.
Write to us and we will answer. If your question concerns a particular listing, order or payout, quote its reference so we can look it up.
