WEBSITE PRIVACY POLICY

Estates of Distinction Pty Ltd (ACN 090 251 353), trading as Mode Australia (referred to in this document as “Mode”, “we”, “us” or “our”), is committed to complying with its obligations under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Act).

The Act allows personal information to be collected, used and disclosed for the purposes for which it was collected in accordance with the Act.

This Privacy Policy applies to personal information we collect and hold in connection with this website, and in the course of our real estate agency business, including property sales and property management.

This Privacy Policy may be revised, updated or replaced from time to time and we may notify users of any changes by posting the revised, updated or replaced Privacy Policy on this website. Any changes take effect on the date on which the revised Privacy Policy is posted to this website.

If you are a current or prospective vendor, purchaser or landlord, or you make an enquiry with us (including via this website), we may collect:

• your contact details, including name, address, telephone number and email address;

• your driver’s licence number;

• current property ownership and title details;

• desired property ownership details; and

• details of properties you have sold or acquired.

If you are a current or prospective tenant of a property we manage, we may also collect:

• employment details, including your employment status, employer, salary and length of employment;

• other sources of income; and

• personal and financial referees we may contact regarding your application.

We may also collect general technical information when you visit this website, such as your browser and operating system type, referring website address, IP address, and the pages you access. This website is built and hosted on GoDaddy’s Websites + Marketing platform, which automatically collects anonymous site-visit and traffic data (such as page views and load times) for the purpose of website performance monitoring. This data does not identify you personally.

We may need to ask you for other forms of personal information from time to time where reasonably necessary to provide our services to you.

We collect this information to:

• provide you with the property management, sales, or other real estate services you have requested;
• assess your suitability as a tenant, purchaser, or client, including verifying your identity and financial position where relevant;
• comply with our obligations under the Property and Stock Agents Act 2002 (NSW), the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW), and other applicable legislation governing real estate sales, leasing and administration;
• if and when we provide property sales services, verify your identity and, where required, the source of funds and beneficial ownership involved in a transaction, in order to comply with our obligations as a reporting entity under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) and AUSTRAC’s requirements (these obligations do not currently apply to our property management services);
• maintain accurate business and property records;
• respond to your enquiries and provide customer service;
• keep you informed about services, properties or updates that may be relevant to you; and
• meet our general administrative, planning and reporting requirements.

If you do not provide the requested information, we may be unable to process your tenancy application, act on your behalf as a vendor or purchaser, or provide you with the level of service you require.

ADM is when:

(a) we use a computer program to make, or do a thing that is substantially and directly related to making, a decision; and

(b) the decision could reasonably be expected to significantly affect the rights or interests of an individual.

We use PropertyMe, a cloud-based property management platform, for the day-to-day management of your tenancy, and one or both of Ignite (a rental application platform provided by REA Group, the operator of realestate.com.au) and ApplySafe (PropertyMe’s own tenancy application and identity/affordability verification feature) to process rental applications. These platforms include AI-assisted, automated, or algorithmic features as part of our day-to-day operations. These may include:

• assessing and scoring rental applications submitted through Ignite and/or ApplySafe, by drawing on information such as your identification, employment, income, rental history, and tenancy or credit database results;
• flagging rent arrears or lease compliance issues for follow-up;
• triaging maintenance requests and recommending or coordinating trade or contractor dispatch; and
• supporting communications with tenants, landlords, vendors and purchasers, including automated correspondence and chat-based query handling.

Where these tools are used, final decisions that significantly affect your rights or interests - such as approving or declining a tenancy application, or issuing a formal notice - are made or reviewed by a member of our team, not by the software alone, unless we tell you otherwise at the time.

The kinds of personal information used in the operation of these tools may include the categories described under “What information do we collect?” above.

As our use of these tools develops, we will update this section to ensure it accurately describes:

• the kinds of personal information used in the operation of any such computer programs;
• the kinds of decisions made solely by the operation of such computer programs; and
• the kinds of decisions for which a thing substantially and directly related to making the decision is done by such computer programs.

We will use and disclose personal information only for the purposes for which it is collected in accordance with the Act, including:

• providing services and customer support, including service updates;
• maintaining and updating our records, including through PropertyMe Advanced, our property management software platform, which stores and processes tenant, landlord, vendor and purchaser information on our behalf, including through its AI-assisted and automated features described under “Automated Decision Making” above;
• if you are a prospective tenant, processing your rental application through Ignite and/or ApplySafe, which may include their own algorithmic assessment of your application as described under “Automated Decision Making” above;
• comparing information for accuracy, and verifying it with third parties;
• if you are a tenant of a property we manage, disclosing your information to a tenancy (rental history) database, namely TICA and, where applicable, Trading Reference Australia (TRA), for the purpose of tenant history checks;
• where a credit file check forms part of a tenancy application, disclosing your information to Equifax, a credit reporting body, in accordance with Part IIIA of the Act (which imposes its own specific consent and notice requirements for credit reporting, separate from the rest of the Act); and
• providing information as authorised or required by law or a relevant government body or authority, such as the Titles Office, NSW Rental Bonds Online, or, if and when we provide property sales services, AUSTRAC (Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre), to whom we would be required to report as a reporting entity under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth).

We do not sell your personal information to other organisations.

 We disclose personal information overseas. This website is hosted on GoDaddy’s Websites + Marketing platform, and raw server logs and website traffic data are streamed to GoDaddy’s data centers in the United States. This automated technical data does not contain personally identifiable information.

We also use PropertyMe Advanced as our property management software platform, and one or both of Ignite (provided by REA Group) and ApplySafe (a PropertyMe feature) to process rental applications. PropertyMe’s own privacy policy confirms that email and SMS communications sent through its platform are processed by third-party providers located in the United States, and that identity, contact, bank account and rental affordability information submitted via ApplySafe may be disclosed to third party service providers and landlords located outside Australia. We rely on PropertyMe and REA Group to take reasonable steps to ensure any overseas recipients involved in providing these services do not breach the Australian Privacy Principles.

If we introduce additional third-party tracking tools on this website in future (for example, Google Analytics or Meta Pixel), or expand our use of AI-assisted features within PropertyMe Advanced, this Privacy Policy will be updated to reflect any further overseas disclosure this involves.

We may also use cloud storage and IT servers that may be located overseas to store the personal information we hold. As electronic or networked storage can be accessed from various countries through an internet connection, it is not always practical to know in which country information about an individual may be held.

To the extent that we can identify the countries to which we transfer information, they are: United States (via our website host, GoDaddy, and via PropertyMe’s email, SMS, and, if we use ApplySafe, identity verification service providers). The location of any overseas processing by Ignite/REA Group has not yet been confirmed [insert once confirmed with REA Group].

Please note that in some cases, countries to which we transfer information may not have laws or binding schemes that protect your information in a way that is, overall, substantially similar to the protections under the Australian Privacy Principles, and there may not be any accessible mechanism or binding scheme through which you could enforce legal protections.

You can browse this website, and view our real estate advertising, without disclosing your identity to us. Attending an open home or auction generally does not require you to provide personal details, unless you intend to make an offer or bid.

However, entering into a transaction with us involving the sale, purchase or lease of real estate requires you, under various laws and regulations, to provide us with personal information to identify you. Please note that we may not be able to provide you with some or all of our services if you decline to do so.

A cookie is an electronic token passed to your browser which is passed back to the server whenever a page is sent to you. Our servers, or our website hosting and analytics providers, may generate cookies to keep track of pages accessed while using this website. Cookies generally remain on your device even after your session ends, and can be read by the server that placed them during a subsequent visit.

When you visit this website, our server may log certain information, including your browser and operating system type, the top-level domain name (for example .com, .net, .au), the referring website address, your IP address, and the date, time and pages accessed. This is generally used only for internal statistical analysis and system administration.

Any other information you supply to us directly, such as by email or through a form on this website, is treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We take reasonable steps to protect all information we hold, including personal information, from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

Where personal information is no longer required for the purposes for which it may be used or disclosed under the Act, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify it.

We may store information in cloud or other networked or electronic storage. As such storage can be accessed from various countries through an internet connection, it is not always practical to know in which country your information may be held.

Where appropriate, we use secure transmission facilities. However, no transmission of information over the internet can be guaranteed to be completely secure, and we do not warrant the security of any information transmitted to us online.

This website may contain links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those websites. This Privacy Policy does not extend to those linked websites.

We may use personal information, excluding sensitive information, to keep you informed of properties, services or promotions we consider may be of interest to you. These communications may be sent by mail, SMS, fax or email, in accordance with applicable marketing laws, including the Spam Act 2003 (Cth).

If you do not wish to receive marketing communications from us, you can tell us at any time by contacting the Privacy Officer (details below), or by using the opt-out mechanism included in the communication itself, and we will remove you from our marketing list. We will not use your sensitive information for marketing purposes without your consent.

You have the right to request access to any personal information we hold about you, unless we are permitted to withhold it. We will respond to your request within 14 days and endeavour to provide the information within 30 days. We may charge a reasonable fee to cover our administrative and other reasonable costs in providing access, but will not charge simply for making the request or for correcting your information.

We may not be able to grant access in certain circumstances, for example where:

• providing access may pose a serious threat to the life or health of any individual, or be an unreasonable intrusion into another individual’s privacy;
• your request is, in our reasonable opinion, frivolous or vexatious; or
• providing access would be unlawful, or would prejudice an investigation or the enforcement of law.

If we are unable to provide access, we will give you written reasons for our decision.

If you believe personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete, irrelevant, misleading or out of date, you may request that we correct it. We will consider whether the requested amendment is warranted. If we do not agree that amendment is warranted, we will add a note to the information recording your disagreement.

Requests for access to or correction of your personal information should be made in writing to the Privacy Officer, using the details below.

The Privacy Officer PO Box 3432 Dural NSW 2158 / Email: hello@mode.com.au

If you have a complaint or concern about how we have handled your personal information, please contact the Privacy Officer using the details above. We will do our best to resolve your complaint within 90 days.

If we are unable to resolve your complaint within this time, or you are unhappy with the outcome, you may refer your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner:

Phone: 1300 363 992

Email:   enquiries@oaic.gov.au

Post:     GPO Box 5288, Sydney NSW 2001

web:      www.oaic.gov.au 

Last updated: 2 July 2026