Honest answers
Everything you’ll want to ask before you join.
Adapted to your country’s legal framework — from the Junta de Propietarios in Spain to Section 20 and the Building Safety Act in England to RERA / Mollak in the UAE. Select your country for the right answers.
Tailor the answers
Where will you be implementing Habita?
We’ll adjust the FAQ below for that country’s legal framework, tax rules, and payment methods.
Country rules
Yes. We support leasehold blocks (with or without Right to Manage), commonhold, and shared-ownership blocks. Service Charge accounting follows RICS Service Charge Residential Management Code (4th edition), with separate reserve fund tracking and full owner transparency.
Yes, major-works tracking with the 30-day Notice of Intention, 30-day Notice of Estimates, contractor quote collection, owner observations, and the final award notice. Every step is logged with the dates the law requires, exportable as a single PDF for the audit trail.
Yes, Habita can be deployed by the RTM company after handover from the freeholder's managing agent. Document migration (existing leases, insurance, contracts), opening accounts, and resident onboarding via invite codes are all part of the standard setup.
The Habita SaaS subscription is subject to UK VAT at 20%. Service charges between leaseholders and the freeholder / RTM company are typically exempt under VAT Notice 742. Habita generates VAT-compliant invoices for your accounts.
Yes. The Building Safety Act 2022 introduced mandatory obligations for 'higher-risk buildings' (18m+ or 7+ storeys). Habita's Compliance module tracks your Building Safety Case documentation, Principal Accountable Person and Accountable Person register, mandatory Residents Engagement Strategy, and the Building Safety Fund application status.
For all residential buildings regardless of height, Habita tracks fire risk assessment expiry (with 90/60/30-day alerts), emergency lighting test records, asbestos surveys, gas and electrical certificates, and Responsible Person documentation — exactly the paper trail required for RICS and insurance purposes.
Yes, every demand generated by Habita includes the landlord's name and address as required by s.47 LTA 1985, and the prescribed summary of leaseholders' rights and obligations under s.21B (using the exact wording from SI 2004/3098). Service charge demands missing these particulars are legally irrecoverable under s.47(3), so Habita enforces them automatically — you cannot send a non-compliant demand.
For major works, Section 20 notices are generated with the legally-required wording at each consultation stage.
BACS Direct Debit is the most common method for recurring quarterly or monthly service charge instalments — residents authorise once and payments are taken automatically. Ad-hoc payments (special levies, Section 20 major-works contributions) are collected by card via Stripe or bank transfer with automatic reconciliation.
Habita generates individual demand notices per leaseholder with the required legal wording and BACS remittance details, and tracks payments against the annual budget — so you always know who has paid and who is in arrears.
Yes. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 is the most significant change to English leasehold law in a generation. Key areas Habita already covers or is building for:
Transparency ledger — the Act strengthens leaseholders' rights to inspect service charge accounts. Habita's real-time ledger exceeds the transparency requirements.
Ground rent — the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 banned ground rents for new regulated leases. For legacy leases still paying ground rent, Habita tracks ground rent demands separately from service charges.
Right to Manage — RTM application support and block-by-block handover documentation are built into the setup workflow.
We publish a UK compliance note with every relevant legislative update. Customers get it automatically.
Yes, and accredited managing agents are our primary UK customer. ARMA's Consumer Charter and IRPM's code of conduct both require transparent service charge accounting, clear resident communication, and documented AGM procedures — all of which Habita delivers out of the box.
The document vault, signed minutes, and audit log are sufficient for the RICS Service Charge Residential Management Code (4th edition) compliance review that ARMA audits require.
Pricing & billing
USD is our internal accounting currency, it's what we use to keep our team paid, our infrastructure running, and our books simple. You never see USD on an invoice.
You sign up in GBP at today's exchange rate. The rate is then locked for your subscription, so even if the dollar moves 10% next year, your monthly fee in pounds doesn't change. Recurring charges are taken by BACS Direct Debit in sterling — the amount on your bank statement matches exactly what's on your contract.
After we convert the USD price at the day’s ECB rate, we round up to the nearest 5 of the local currency for monthly base fees (so €41.40 becomes €45). Per-unit fees round to the nearest whole unit. Setup fees mirror the USD figure exactly (so $195 becomes £195, clean numbers, not awkward conversions).
Your currency. Card and direct-debit payments are charged in GBP via Stripe Connect; the amount you see on your statement matches exactly what you see on this page.
You’ll see a notice in your billing settings well before any change takes effect. We never auto-upgrade you. You decide whether to move to the next tier, stay where you are with a hard cap, or talk to us about a custom contract.
30 days, no card required. You only enter payment details if you choose to continue at the end of the trial. The setup fee only triggers when you become a paying customer.
Yes, pay annually upfront and you get two months free (about 17% off). The setup fee is one-off either way.
Nothing. You’re not charged, your data is exported as a ZIP, and your community is deactivated. We don’t pre-bill, we don’t auto-renew without explicit consent, and you can re-activate within 90 days if you change your mind.
What’s included
Everything resident-facing: feed, messaging, tickets, events, polls, payments, the document vault, multi-language translation, push notifications, and the legally-required AGM voting and transparency ledger. We charge per unit (apartment), not per user, so a family of four counts as one unit.
Residents never pay Habita. The management company or HOA pays the subscription; residents access the app for free. Resident-paid items (monthly community fees, special levies) are processed via Stripe Connect to the community’s own bank account, and Habita takes no cut.
Yes, that’s the whole point. Habita’s in-app messaging, feed, polls, and events are the structured replacement for the chaos of multiple WhatsApp groups. Important things stay searchable instead of getting lost in meme threads.
It costs $20/community/month (≈€20). You get the full provider-side workflow: per-building QR codes, GPS-verified arrivals, photo evidence, sign-off. It’s the same module that’s already included in Growth and Enterprise.
Still have a question?
A real person replies — usually the same working day.