Privacy Policy
We are committed to respecting and protecting your personal information. We want you to know what information we collect, why we need it, how we protect it, where we store it and how you can access and correct it. Our privacy policy is not just a legal obligation—it’s our promise to you.
What is personal information?
There are many types of personal information that we may require in order to serve you better, including:
- Your name, address, phone number, fax number and e-mail address,
- Your mortgage or financial history when purchasing a home from us,
- Other information incidental to purchasing a home from us (including information about professional advisors), and
- Information gathered in customer service inquiries, surveys, contests or inquiries into our products and services.
Why do we collect, use and disclose your personal information?
We collect, use and disclose personal information to serve you better. We only collect personal information that is strictly necessary for the purposes outlined in this policy. Examples of why we collect your personal information:
- To respond to your requests for product or service information.
- To engage in business transactions with you and provide appropriate levels of service following the completion of a transaction.
- To share personal information that we collect with other service providers, such as utilities, warranty providers, insurance companies, banking institutions and credit agencies, as well as trades and contractors, etc. who perform various functions to assist in our delivery of service to you.
- To provide information to third parties for legal or regulatory purposes.
- To provide information to third parties to perform functions on our behalf, such as marketing, data processing, document management, office services, other technological or administrative services or customer research (such as to our third party survey company in order to conduct customer satisfaction surveys).
- To use personal information at an aggregate level to improve the quality and efficiency of our products and services and to improve our marketing efforts.
- To share your personal information within our enterprise (including our subsidiaries and affiliates) to cross promote products and services which we believe will be of interest to you.
- To distribute informational e-mail communications.
How do we gather and use your information?
Generally, we collect personal information from you directly or from our business partners such as realtors, or lending or mortgage officers. This information could be collected in person via our registration form, over the telephone, through the mail or by electronic means through our website(s), online landing pages or various forms you fill out via social media sites. Outlined below is a detailed list of all the ways we gather and use your information.
Online Communications – In order to provide you with a service or information, you may voluntarily submit personal information to us for purposes such as asking a question, obtaining information, reviewing or downloading a publication, subscribing to a newsletter or a mail or e-mail list, participating in an event, and participating in contests and surveys. We may combine and store personal information about your use of our website and the online information you have provided with certain other personal information we may have collected.
E-mail Communications – Occasionally, we may send marketing or promotional e-mail communications to you with information that may be useful, including information about our products and services, and other third parties with whom we have a relationship. In this process, we may collect certain information such as the date/time you first opened our e-mail communications, the number of times you open our e-mail communications, the number of click-throughs per article, total click-through activity on the contents of our e-mail communications and compile generally the related statistics. We may combine and store any such information to manage and improve our e-mail communications to you. If you decide you do not want to receive any future marketing e-mails from us, we will include instructions on how to unsubscribe and inform us of your preferences.
Links – Our website may contain links to other websites which are provided as a convenience only. You are advised that other third-party websites may have different privacy policies and practices than us, and we have no responsibility for such third-party websites.
Cookies –A cookie is a token that a server gives to your browser when you access our website(s). Cookies are capable of storing many types of data. Cookies help provide additional functionality to the website or to help us analyze web site usage more accurately. For instance, our server may set a cookie that keeps you from having to enter a password more than once during a visit to one of our websites. With most Internet browsers, you can erase cookies from your computer hard drive, block all cookies or receive a warning before a cookie is stored. Please refer to your browser instructions or help screen to learn more about these functions.
Google – We and our third-party vendors use Google Analytics, Remarketing and Reporting to inform, optimize and serve ads based on your past visits to our website and report how interactions with these ad impressions and ad services are related to your visits.
Your Consent
We only collect, use or disclose personal information for purposes we believe you would consider appropriate under the circumstances. By using our website(s), you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy and consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information for the purposes set out in this policy. If you do not agree to the Policy, please do not use this site.
Of course, subject to reasonable and lawful limits, you can choose not to provide us with some or all of your personal information. However, this choice may prevent us from providing the product, service or information that you requested. We believe you would also expect us to contact you to advise you of new and existing services and benefits that may be of interest to you and to ask your opinion about our current performance through customer satisfaction surveys. From time to time, we will inform you of such services or contact you for your opinions via direct marketing. Direct marketing material is usually delivered to you by mail, telephone or electronic means. Unless you contact us to inform us otherwise, we will consider that you have consented to our continued use and disclosure of your information for these purposes. You may choose not to receive these offers or surveys and have your name deleted from our lists.
We separately request your express consent, or rely on implied consent, in the provision of commercial electronic messages (e-mails, texts and instant messages) to you.
Third Parties
Apart from the purposes outlined above, if you allow us to, your name, address and telephone number may be transmitted to trusted third parties in order to inform you of products and services that are offered and that we believe may be of interest to you. We require each third party to have a policy in place that complies with the requirements of the applicable privacy and anti-spam legislation in Canada.
Except as set out in this privacy policy, or as permitted or required by law, we do not sell or disclose any of your personal information to any other organization.
How do we store and protect your personal information?
Your personal information is stored in secure locations and on secure servers.
Your personal information is retained only as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. When no longer required, we destroy, erase or de-personalize your personal information. Certain legal requirements may necessitate our retaining some or all of your personal information for a specific period of time.
We protect your personal information by using industry standard technology and security safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information, including physical, administrative and electronic controls to minimize the risk of unauthorized access, use or disclosure of or to your personal information.
Our employees are trained to appreciate the importance of privacy and confidentiality of personal information and the provisions of this policy apply to them as conditions of their employment.
You acknowledge that if any of our third party service providers are located outside of Canada, your personal information may be processed and stored in such jurisdictions.
How can you access and correct your personal information?
You have the right to access your personal information that is in our custody, subject only to certain legal restrictions.
We strive to ensure that all information on-hand is accurate and up-to-date. We therefore urge you to provide us with updates regarding your personal information and to inform us of any errors.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We reserve the right, without prior notice, to modify our Privacy Policy as business needs require. We will post any such changes on this website.
Further Information
For further information about what your rights are under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents (PIPEDA) Act, please visit the website for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at www.priv.gc.ca.
If you have questions about accessing your personal information, our practices surrounding the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information, or this privacy policy, or complaints about how your personal information has been handled, please contact our privacy officer at: