Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Landlodz is operated by Landlodz (Pty) Ltd, a South African private company. References to "Landlodz", "we", "us" and "our" mean Landlodz (Pty) Ltd. References to "you" mean the natural or juristic person using landlodz.com, our planner consult service or the planner portal. We process personal information as a responsible party under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA).

For all privacy matters you can reach our Information Officer, Reabetswe Qametsi, at consult@landlodz.com or our Data Protection Officer at consult@landlodz.com. You may also lodge a complaint directly with the Information Regulator under section 74 of POPIA.

2. Information we collect

3. How we use your information & the legal basis

We process your personal information for the following purposes and on the following lawful grounds under POPIA section 11:

• Performance of the planner engagement (contract): running the consult, building your merged intake, drafting your motivational report, verifying the pack against our 12-item SPLUMA checklist, lodging it with the municipality, responding to municipal queries on your behalf and tracking decision and appeal milestones.
• Invoicing & payments (contract & legal obligation): issuing Landlodz pro-forma and final invoices for application and appeal fees, reconciling EFT payments received into the Landlodz bank account, providing receipts and meeting tax and accounting record-keeping duties.
• Platform security (legitimate interest & legal obligation): authenticating planner and staff sign-ins, protecting against fraud, abuse and unauthorised access, and maintaining audit trails required by the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act.
• Service communications (contract): sending transactional emails about your application status, planner messages, payment receipts and appeal lodgement, from notify@notify.landlodz.com, and direct updates from our planner by email, WhatsApp or phone.
• Product improvement (legitimate interest): aggregated, de-identified analytics about which features are used, how long workflows take and where errors occur.
• Marketing (consent): only where you have opted in. You can unsubscribe at any time from any marketing email or by emailing consult@landlodz.com.

4. Automated assistance & planner review

Landlodz uses automated tools to help draft sections of your application pack, summarise municipal feedback and translate technical zoning language into plain English. No decision affecting your legal position is taken by an automated system. A registered town planner reviews, edits and signs off on every motivational report, every submission, every appeal and every response to the municipality before it leaves the platform. You have the right under POPIA section 71 to request human review of any output you believe is incorrect.

5. Third-party operators & sub-processors

We share your information only with the operators below, only to the extent needed for the purposes described above, and only under written agreements that bind them to POPIA-equivalent protections.

6. How we secure your information

• TLS 1.2+ in transit and AES-256 at rest for all stored data and documents
• Row-level security and security-definer functions to prevent cross-client data access
• Separated role-based access for planners and administrators
• Multi-factor sign-in for all planner and administrator accounts
• Tamper-evident audit logs for sign-ins, role changes, payments and document access
• Automated daily backups with point-in-time recovery and quarterly restore tests
• Annual third-party penetration test and continuous OWASP-aligned vulnerability scanning
• Breach notification to you and the Information Regulator within 72 hours where required by POPIA section 22

7. Retention

• Contact & consult records: for as long as we act for you, deleted on request subject to legal holds
• Application files, motivational reports & planner correspondence: 7 years from final municipal decision (SPLUMA / professional liability requirement)
• Tax invoices, receipts & payment records: 5 years from the end of the relevant tax year (Tax Administration Act)
• Authentication & security logs: 12 months
• Marketing consents & unsubscribes: for as long as needed to honour your choice
• Backups: rolling 35-day window, then automatically purged

8. Your rights under POPIA

• Access: request a copy of the personal information we hold about you
• Correction: ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or out of date
• Deletion: ask us to delete information no longer required (subject to legal-hold exceptions in section 7)
• Portability: request a copy of your applications, documents and invoices in a machine-readable format by emailing consult@landlodz.com - we respond within 30 days and charge no fee for reasonable requests
• Objection & withdrawal of consent: object to processing for marketing or other consent-based purposes at any time
• Human review: request a human review of any automated output before it is acted on
• Complaint: lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator at complaints.IR@justice.gov.za or +27 (0) 10 023 5200

To exercise any of these rights, email consult@landlodz.com. We respond within 30 days and do not charge a fee for reasonable requests.

9. Children

Landlodz is not intended for persons under 18. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with information, please contact us so we can delete it.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be notified by email to the address you gave us and published on this page at least 14 days before they take effect. The "Last updated" date above always reflects the current version.