Content moderation policy

1. What this policy covers

This policy covers the content members put on Habanto: property listings (photos, descriptions, prices, terms, and the facts stated about a unit), public pro profiles (agent, agency, and developer pages, including profile photos), written reviews about agents, and messages sent between members through Habanto.

It does not cover the identity and licence documents you upload for verification (for example an Emirates ID, broker card, trade licence, or title deed). Those are never public, are handled as described in our Privacy policy, and are reviewed under Section 4 below rather than through public reporting.

This policy sits alongside our Terms of service. Where the Terms describe what you agree not to do, this policy describes what we do about it.

2. What is not allowed

Fraudulent listings. Advertising a home that is not available, that you have no authority to advertise, or at a price you do not intend to honour.

Duplicate listings. One unit gets one listing on Habanto. Publishing the same unit more than once, or republishing it to gain visibility, is not allowed.

Misrepresented property facts. Size, bedroom and bathroom count, floor, view, condition, furnishing, completion status, community, or building. Photos must be of the unit or of its building, and must not be edited to hide or invent a material feature.

Advertising without the permission your emirate requires. That includes publishing without a valid advertising permit where one is required, and advertising a property without written authority from its owner.

Offensive or discriminatory content. Content that harasses, threatens, or demeans a person, and content that excludes or targets people by nationality, religion, race, gender, family status, or disability.

Spam. Unsolicited marketing through Habanto messaging, repeated identical enquiries, and content posted to drive traffic elsewhere.

Impersonation. Presenting yourself as another person, agent, agency, developer, or as Habanto itself, and using someone else’s licence number, photograph, or identity document.

Circumvention. Using Habanto to make an introduction and then moving the dealing off the platform to avoid our terms, as described in Section 7.1 of the Terms of service.

Anything unlawful under UAE law.

3. How we check a listing before it is published

Every listing submitted to Habanto is checked before it can appear to anyone. This is the part of Habanto we consider most important: a listing does not go live simply because somebody submitted it.

A listing is either reviewed by a person on our team, or cleared by automated validation checks against the data and permit references it was submitted with. Some listings always go to a person regardless: the first listing from a given professional, a price outside the plausible range for that area, a title deed number already used by another account, an advertising permit number already used on another listing, anything that has already been reported, a listing from a professional whose own profile is not yet verified, and a random sample of everything else.

A listing that fails review is rejected rather than published. The professional who submitted it receives the outcome by email, and the reviewer’s reason is shown on their console so it can be corrected and resubmitted.

Our verified mark is deliberately narrower than publication. Only a listing that a person reviewed carries it. Ownership of a specific unit is only ever confirmed by a person reading a title deed, never by an automated check, and a listing that was cleared automatically shows no ownership confirmation anywhere on the site.

4. How we check the people behind a listing

Agents, agencies, and developers are verified before their profile is treated as verified anywhere on Habanto. A reviewer confirms the documents and registration references behind the profile, such as a broker registration number, an office registration number, or a trade licence.

A profile can be rejected with a written reason so it can be corrected and resubmitted. Verified is only ever the result of a person confirming a record, and changing a trust field on a verified profile returns it to review.

5. How to report something

Signed-in members can report a listing, a public agent or agency profile, a review, or a conversation, using the report control on the page where that content appears. Sign-in is required so that reports are accountable and can be rate limited.

You choose one reason: looks fraudulent, wrong information, offensive content, spam, or something else. You can add detail in your own words, which the reviewer reads.

If you do not have an account, or the content you want to raise has no report control, use the contact form at habanto.com/contact and choose the "Report a listing" topic, which reaches our trust and safety team. You can also email info@habanto.com.

We do not tell you the outcome of your report, and this is deliberate. A queue that reports back becomes a way to test whether a report worked, which is useful to the people we are trying to keep off Habanto.

6. How we handle a report

Open reports go into one internal queue and are worked oldest first, in the order they arrived. We do not publish a response-time target, because we would rather commit to something we can keep: a report is not closed by anything automatic, and no report leaves the queue without a person having read it.

A reviewer closes a report as resolved (we acted) or dismissed (no action was needed). Either outcome requires the reviewer to write a reason, which is kept in our internal audit record along with who decided it and when.

Repeat reports on the same content by the same member are treated as one report rather than as pressure on the queue.

7. What we can do about content that breaks these rules

Reject a listing before it is published, with the reason sent to the professional who submitted it.

Hide a review from a public agent page, recorded against that review with who hid it.

Resolve or dismiss a report, with a written reason kept in our audit record.

Suspend an account. A suspended member cannot sign in, and listings published by that member stop appearing on the public site. Suspension is reversible, so we can undo it if we got it wrong.

Ask the professional responsible for a published listing to correct it or withdraw it, and reject it at the next review if it is resubmitted unchanged.

Every one of these actions is recorded in an internal audit log naming the reviewer, the action, and the reason.

8. What we cannot do yet

We would rather state our limits than imply powers we do not have.

Our reviewers cannot remove a listing that is already published. Withdrawing a published listing is an action only the professional who published it can take. Where a published listing breaks these rules, what we can do is ask for it to be withdrawn or corrected, and suspend the account behind it, which stops that member’s listings appearing on the site.

Hiding a review is not reversible from our side today. We hide only where the review breaches this policy, not because it is unfavourable.

We do not moderate the content of private messages proactively. We read a conversation only when it is reported, or when a member asks our support team to look, and every such read is recorded against the reviewer who did it.

We do not use automated systems to remove content. Automation on Habanto only ever clears a listing for publication or holds it for a person, as described in Section 3.

9. If you disagree with a decision

If your listing was rejected, the reason is in the email we sent and on your console. Correct what it names and resubmit. A resubmitted listing goes through review again.

If your profile was rejected, the reviewer’s reason is on your profile. The same applies: correct it and resubmit.

If your account was suspended, or you believe any other decision was wrong, write to us at info@habanto.com or use the contact form at habanto.com/contact with the "Report a listing" topic. Tell us the account, listing, or profile in question and why you think the decision was wrong, and we will look at it again. Suspension can be lifted.

10. Reporting to authorities

Nothing in this policy limits your right to report a matter to the relevant UAE authority, including your emirate land or real estate regulator, and nothing in it requires you to come to us first.

11. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy as the product changes, and will post the new version here. Because this policy describes what we actually do, a change to our moderation tools is a change to this page.

12. Contact

For anything in this policy, email us at info@habanto.com, or use the contact form at habanto.com/contact.