Last updated: June 2026
Privacy policy
I. Introduction
This privacy policy explains how Abitos handles the personal data of its clients, natural persons, and all other natural persons who are in contact with Abitos (hereinafter referred to as 'you').
Personal data means any form of information that allows you to identify yourself, directly or indirectly, as a natural person.
Abitos attaches great importance to the protection of your personal data and fully respects your privacy. Abitos therefore handles and protects your personal data in a lawful, fair and transparent manner.
When processing your personal data, Abitos naturally complies with the law, currently the Belgian Act of 8 December 1992 and, since 25 May 2018, European Regulation no. 2016/679 of 27 April 2016 on data protection (better known as 'GDPR'), or any other legislative act amending it.
You can obtain more information about the protection of personal data from the Belgian Commission for the Protection of Privacy, known from 25 May 2018 as the Data Protection Authority.
We invite you to read this statement carefully so that you know and understand the policy of Abitos in this area.
This statement is updated regularly. The most recent version of the statement is available on our website. We will inform you through the usual communication channels if important changes have been made.
II. Who is the data controller?
Abitos, with its registered office at Karel Lodewijk Dierickxstraat 22, 9000 Ghent, is the controller for the processing of your data.
Abitos is therefore your point of contact and is the party that must account to the Data Protection Authority for the processing of your personal data. Abitos determines the purposes for which your personal data is processed as well as the means used and the characteristics of the processing.
Abitos may call on specialised service providers to process your personal data on behalf of Abitos and in accordance with the instructions of Abitos, in accordance with this privacy policy. Only the personal data that is strictly necessary will be passed on to these service providers (hereinafter referred to as the 'processors of Abitos').
For all questions relating to the protection of your privacy, you can contact the manager. You can contact him by sending an e-mail to info@abitos.be.
III. Which categories of personal data does Abitos process?
Below is an overview of the categories of personal data that Abitos may process. It is possible that other data may also be processed if it is necessary or useful for the continuation of the contractual relationship with Abitos.
The context in which Abitos obtains or processes this data is indicated below. This table must be read together with the description of the purposes for which Abitos processes the data.
| Category | Examples | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1/ Identity data of the client / principal (seller or landlord) 2/ Identity data of the prospective buyer or tenant | Name, address, place and date of birth, nationality, landline or mobile telephone number and e-mail address. | This data is provided by you and processed when you request information, become a client, conclude an intermediation assignment or register to use the services of Abitos (online), for any identification or use. This data may, among other things, be obtained by reading your identity card. |
| Data about the client's / principal's property (seller or landlord) | Title deed, urban planning extract, soil certificate, inspection certificate of the electrical installation, EPC certificate, information on flood sensitivity, post-intervention file, information on heritage value | This data is provided by you, or requested on your behalf by Abitos from the authorities or technical experts. |
| Data of the prospective tenant relating to a proposed rental contract | Information on profession and employment, solvency, family situation, salary, etc. | This data is collected using forms and contracts that you complete at your request. |
| Additional data for concluding a rental agreement or a private sale agreement | National register number | This data is provided by you. The national register number is only used in the cases provided for or required by law. |
| Data of co-owners (or their tenants) | Name, address, place and date of birth, nationality, landline or mobile telephone number and e-mail address. | This data is provided to Abitos by you as a co-owner when Abitos performs the function of syndic. |
| Data relating to the performance of the syndic service | Payment transactions, including names and account numbers, communications and references, card numbers, etc. | This data relates to your transactions as a co-owner, coordinated by the syndic. |
| Data about the dealings of Abitos with you | The information relating to your contacts with Abitos, by telephone, e-mail, fax, etc. and your interactions on the web pages concerning Abitos, its services or its partners, on social networks, etc. | This data comes from contacts of any kind between you and Abitos (at meetings or events, newsletter subscription, social networks, etc.). |
| Data about the behaviour and preferences of the client | Information about your behaviour and preferences regarding the use of communication and relationship channels, information about your personal choices and lifestyle, private or professional projects, hobbies, etc. | This data results from choices you have expressed or analyses carried out by Abitos in accordance with this statement and its legal obligations. |
Abitos does not process any data revealing your race or ethnic origin, or political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health or life data or sexual orientation, genetic data or biometric data.
IV. For which purposes does Abitos process your personal data?
Abitos collects and processes your personal data solely for the purposes described below. Abitos ensures that only the necessary and relevant data for a particular purpose is processed.
Abitos processes your data in the situations permitted by law, in particular:
- To comply with the legal obligations that rest on Abitos (12.).
- To perform a contract with you or to take certain measures at your request before the conclusion of this contract (13.).
- For the pursuit of the legitimate interests of Abitos, whereby these interests are weighed against your fundamental rights and freedoms (14.).
- In specific cases, with your consent, following a specific and unambiguous request, preceded by clear and comprehensible information; this consent can be withdrawn at any time in accordance with the law (15.).
Legal obligations
Abitos must comply with legislation that requires it, in specific circumstances, to process your personal data in the context of its activities. These obligations may entail that Abitos must cooperate with the competent authorities and/or third parties, and possibly transfer certain of your personal data to them.
These include, among others:
- The obligation to contribute to preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
- The obligations imposed on a syndic regarding the management of co-ownerships.
- The obligation to respond to a formal request from Belgian tax and judicial authorities.
The list of legal obligations for which Abitos must process your data is not exhaustive and is subject to change.
Contractual relationships between Abitos and you as a client
Before concluding contracts, Abitos sometimes needs to obtain and process certain data, in particular in order to:
- Respond to your request.
- Assist you in providing information and in concluding the contract.
- Follow up a request, evaluate suitability and assess the risks relating to a possible contract.
- Fulfil your intermediation assignment.
In the context of ongoing contracts or the management of contracts, Abitos must process a number of data, in particular to comply with administrative and accounting obligations.
In this context, your data may be transmitted internally within Abitos to various departments, including those not directly responsible for the relationship with you or the performance of a particular contract.
More specifically, Abitos processes your data when performing contracts as follows:
- Management of ongoing contracts / ordered services.
- Central management and overall view of clients.
- The management of your property.
- The management of the co-ownership in which you are a co-owner.
Abitos may process your personal data for additional purposes in the context of the relationship with you and the performance of contracts.
Legitimate interests of Abitos
Abitos also processes your data for the realisation of its legitimate interests. In doing so, Abitos strives to find a fair balance between the need to process data and respect for your rights and freedoms, including the protection of privacy.
Personal data is processed, among other things, for:
- Personalising the services of Abitos.
- Improving the quality of the service provided to you through: evaluation and improvement of processes, including campaigns, simulations and sales, by means of various methods such as statistical analysis, satisfaction surveys and various other research methods; improvement of existing (or under development) products of Abitos, based on surveys among clients of Abitos, statistics, tests and feedback from clients via social networks (Twitter, Facebook) linked to Abitos.
- Monitoring the activities of Abitos, including the volume of turnover, the number of appointments in our offices, the number of calls and visits to the website of Abitos, the nature of the questions asked by clients, etc.
- Preparing studies and statistics, using anonymisation and pseudonymisation of the persons concerned.
- The training of our staff through the use of practical examples for illustration, including the recording of certain telephone conversations.
- The use of cookies to improve the ease of use for visitors to its website. More information about how cookies work and the possibilities to limit their use and to delete them can be found under article IX. Cookie policy.
- Keeping evidence (archives).
- Establishing, exercising, defending and preserving the rights of Abitos or all persons it represents, for example for recovery proceedings or disputes.
Specific legitimate interest of Abitos: direct marketing purposes
Abitos carries out a customer segmentation, in particular according to your needs, in order to offer you, for example, suitable properties and/or services that match your professional and personal situation. To this end, Abitos may, among other things:
- Assess the services you already use and your sociodemographic data (age, family composition, income, etc.).
- Analyse your behaviour through various channels (visits/meetings, e-mails, website visits, messages via our website), infer your preferences and thereby personalise the information and the internet pages you have visited.
- Adapt the advertisements on the web pages so that they match the interest you have shown through your behaviour on our website, social networks, in an office or elsewhere (e.g. at events where Abitos was present).
- Simplify the completion of forms by pre-filling certain fields with already known data and asking you to verify the accuracy of this data and update it if necessary.
- Assess the key moments at which certain services would suit you best.
- Send you personalised advertisements by post or telephone.
Abitos may process your personal electronic contact details (namely your mobile telephone number and e-mail address) in order to send you personal information, advertisements or proposals via direct marketing or newsletters. In this case, Abitos must first request your specific consent.
By accepting this privacy policy, you give your consent to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes.
V. With whom does Abitos share your personal data?
Abitos handles your personal data with the utmost care and only shares your data in order to offer you the best services in the performance of its assignment.
Abitos may transmit your data to other entities within its group, at home and abroad, in particular to the other entities of the group that assist Abitos in the execution, management and control of activities, including reporting, support and computer security or the provision of specific services and products.
In some cases, Abitos is legally obliged to share your data with third parties, including:
- Public authorities or supervisory authorities where there is a legal obligation to transfer information
- Judicial investigation authorities at their express request
Abitos also transfers your data to specific service providers to help with:
- Designing and maintaining computer equipment and internet applications.
- Providing advertising and communication services, including online and social network providers.
- Preparing reports and statistics, printing documents and designing products or services.
- Marketing its activities, organising events and managing client communication.
Abitos must also transfer your data to online and social network providers, which Abitos uses to provide advertising services.
Likewise, your personal data may be communicated to bailiffs or lawyers in the context of legal proceedings.
In the aforementioned cases, Abitos ensures that third parties only have limited access to the personal data necessary to carry out the specific tasks required. Abitos will also ensure that third parties undertake to use the personal data in a secure and confidential manner and in accordance with the instructions of Abitos and its data protection policy.
Abitos stores your personal data within the EEA. No data is therefore transferred to countries outside the EEA.
VI. How long is your personal data kept?
Abitos will not keep your personal data longer than necessary for the realisation of the purposes for which the data is collected.
This period is linked to the legal and tax obligations of Abitos, as well as the legal necessity to keep your data beyond the retention period as evidence or to respond to requests for information from the competent authority, for example:
- 10 years in the context of anti-money-laundering legislation
- 10 years in the context of the contractual liability of Abitos
- 7 years for the accounts and supporting documents of the associations of co-owners in connection with the exercise of the syndic task
Outside these periods, your personal data is deleted or anonymised.
VII. How is your personal data secured?
Abitos applies strict standards to protect the personal data under its control against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage.
Abitos therefore takes measures of a technical and organisational nature such as encryption, antivirus, firewalls, access controls, strict selection of staff and suppliers, in order to prevent and detect inappropriate access, loss or disclosure of your personal data.
In the unlikely and unfortunate event that your personal data under the control of Abitos is compromised by an information security breach, Abitos will act immediately to identify the cause of such breach and take action through adequate remedial measures. If necessary, Abitos will notify you of this incident in accordance with the applicable legislation.
VIII. What are your rights when processing your personal data?
Right of access, rectification, restriction, erasure, data portability and objection
For the purposes mentioned above, you have:
- A right of access to your personal data at Abitos. This means that you can ask Abitos whether it processes your personal data, for which purposes this data is processed, which categories of data are processed, and to whom they are communicated.
- A right of rectification if you establish that your personal data is incorrect or incomplete.
- A right to restriction if, for example, you dispute the accuracy of your personal data, and this for a period allowing Abitos to check this.
- A right to erasure of your personal data. When your contract with Abitos has ended, you can ask Abitos to erase your personal data if it is no longer necessary for the purposes for which this personal data was collected. You also have the possibility to request at any time the erasure of personal data processed by Abitos on the basis of your consent (unless Abitos has another legal basis for the processing) or on the basis of the legitimate interest of Abitos (unless there are overriding compelling legitimate grounds for the processing). Abitos may in any case retain this personal data if this is required for evidentiary purposes in the context of legal claims.
- A right to portability of the data that you yourself have provided to Abitos if your personal data is processed on the basis of a contract or on the basis of your consent for sending electronic communications and this personal data is processed by means of automated processes. Under this right, you can ask Abitos to forward your personal data to yourself or to transfer it directly to another data controller, insofar as this is technically possible for Abitos.
- A right to object to the processing of your data for the purposes mentioned in article 14. In that case, Abitos will stop processing your personal data, unless Abitos invokes compelling legitimate grounds that outweigh your interests, rights and freedoms or when there are grounds relating to the establishment, exercise or substantiation of a legal claim.
- A right to object to direct marketing. In article 15, your consent was requested to process and use your electronic contact details in order to send you commercial information, advertising or personal proposals (via direct marketing actions or electronic newsletters). This applies in particular to communications to your mobile telephone number and e-mail address. You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data for electronic direct marketing and to oppose the future receipt of such advertising. The exercise of the right of objection cannot, however, prevent Abitos from contacting you for any other purpose, including a legal obligation or the performance of the contract, in accordance with this statement.
Right to lodge a complaint
You can exercise your rights by sending a written request by post, dated, signed and accompanied by a copy of your identity document, to Abitos, Karel Lodewijk Dierickxstraat 22, 9000 Ghent, or by e-mail to info@abitos.be.
You can also lodge a complaint with the Commission for the Protection of Privacy, by post at Drukpersstraat 15, 1000 Brussels, or by e-mail at commission@privacycommission.be, or by telephone on +32 2 274 48 00.