Privacy Notice

Not every applicant fills in every field. What follows is everything the form is capable of asking, so that nothing on it comes as a surprise.

• Your full legal name, date of birth, and your Social Security number or Taxpayer Identification Number.
• Phone numbers, email address and how you prefer to be contacted.
• An emergency contact’s name, relationship to you, phone and email.
• A legible copy of your driver’s licence or state-issued photo ID — front and back — together with the name, number, issuing state and expiration shown on it.

• Entity name and type, state and date of formation, Federal EIN, state registration or UBI number, business address and phone.
• Trade name, website, years in business, licence numbers, number of employees at the location.
• What the business does, how you intend to use the premises, hours of operation, signage, vehicles kept on site and their plates, and any build-out or utility requirements.
• The name of everyone who will sign the lease, and contact details for additional signers.
• References: a prior landlord, a bank or lender, and a trade reference — each with a contact name and phone number.

• Depending on how you choose to show your financials: business revenue and net income, year-to-date and monthly revenue, owner draw, bank and CPA details, and whether tax returns are available — or employer, position, start date, employer and supervisor contact details, gross monthly income and pay frequency, and previous employment.
• Other sources of income, total monthly income and your primary financial institution.
• The documents you attach, which typically include tax returns, profit-and-loss statements, balance sheets, bank statements, pay stubs, personal financial statements, formation documents and licences.

• Whether you or the proposed tenant entity has been evicted or had a lease terminated for cause; has filed for bankruptcy or had a receivership; has outstanding judgments, tax liens, collections or pending litigation; has had a licence suspended, revoked or denied; and whether hazardous or regulated materials will be used on the premises — with your explanation of any answer of yes.

• The date and time of submission, the IP address the form was sent from, and your browser’s identifying string. We keep these so that we can tell a genuine application from an automated one, and so that we have a record of when an application arrived.

We use what you give us for the following purposes, and for nothing else.

To decide on your application

To judge whether the proposed tenant can carry the rent and is a fit for the premises, and to discuss that decision with the property owner.

To confirm you are who you say you are

Your photo ID and the identifying details on it are used to verify your identity, and to match you to the records returned by the checks below.

To verify what you have told us

To contact your references, prior landlord, employer, bank or CPA, and to obtain consumer credit reports, rental history, income and employment verification and business credit reports — as described in the certification you sign on the form. Your Social Security number or TIN is used for this purpose and for tax reporting; it is not used for anything else.

To prepare and administer a lease

If your application is approved, to draw up the lease, collect a deposit, and manage the tenancy.

To meet our legal and professional obligations

To comply with real estate licensing and record-keeping rules, tax reporting, and any lawful request we are required to answer.

We do not sell your information, and we do not use it for marketing or advertising. We will not use it for a purpose unrelated to your application without asking you first.

Your application is treated as confidential. It is shared only as follows.

• Inside Aroma of Tacoma, LLC. Access is limited to those who need it to decide on or administer your application.
• The owner of the property you are applying for, and their attorney or lender where the owner requires it to approve a lease.
• Consumer reporting agencies and screening companies we instruct to run the checks you authorize, which receive the identifying details those checks need.
• Professional advisers — our attorney or accountant — where a question about your application or tenancy requires it.
• Where the law requires it, in response to a subpoena, court order or lawful demand from a government authority.

Anyone outside Aroma of Tacoma, LLC who is given access to applications is required to keep them confidential, to use them only for the purpose we gave them, and not to pass them on.

• The form is served only over an encrypted connection, so what you type is encrypted in transit.
• Applications are stored on a private server that Aroma of Tacoma, LLC controls. They are kept outside the part of the server the web can reach, in folders whose names cannot be guessed, so no application is reachable by URL.
• The two software libraries the form uses to turn your answers into a PDF are served from our own server rather than from a third party, so no outside service is told that you are filling this in.
• Backups are encrypted.
• No system is perfect. If an unauthorized person ever did obtain your information, we will notify you and the authorities as Washington law requires.

If you withdraw, or we decline

We keep the application for twelve months from the date of the decision, which is the window in which a fair-housing or discrimination complaint would normally be raised and in which we would need the record to answer it. We then delete it, including the identity documents and attachments.

If you are approved and sign a lease

We keep the application for the term of the lease and for seven years afterwards, which covers the periods set by real estate record-keeping rules, tax rules and the statutes of limitation that apply to a lease.

If you never finish the form

Nothing reaches us, so there is nothing for us to keep. The draft in your browser is yours, and clearing it or pressing Start over removes it.

Where we no longer need a document but must keep the record of the decision, we delete the document and keep the record.

Write to us at either address below and we will answer within thirty days.

• Ask what we hold. We will tell you what is in your file and give you a copy.
• Correct it. If something is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
• Ask us to delete it. We will, unless we are required to keep it — for a live lease, or for the record-keeping periods in section E. We will tell you which applies.
• Withdraw your application at any time before a lease is signed.

We will not treat you worse for asking. Making a request costs you nothing.

This is a commercial tenancy application and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under eighteen.

If we change how we handle applications, we will update this notice and change the effective date at the top. The version in effect when you submitted your application is the one that governs it, and we will keep a copy of that version so we can tell you which it was.

Questions about this notice, or about your own application, come to us directly.