Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to Lowcountry Stays's public website, direct-booking flow, guest communications, rental agreements, identity verification workflow, and related short-term rental services. It does not apply to third-party websites or services that we do not control.

If you book through a third-party platform instead of directly through this site, that platform's privacy terms also apply.

When you browse the site, ask about a stay, or make a reservation, we may collect your name, email address, phone number, stay dates, guest count, listing selection, messages, booking history, and other information you choose to provide.

For direct bookings, we also collect a signed short-term rental agreement, the name used for your electronic signature, a timestamp of acceptance, your IP address, browser or device information associated with acceptance, and an identity verification photo when required for the stay.

Payment card details are collected and processed by Stripe. We receive payment status, receipt, refund, and transaction metadata from Stripe, but we do not store full card numbers on our servers.

We may also collect technical information such as IP address, browser type, device information, pages viewed, referring pages, dates and times of visits, form activity needed to complete a booking, and security or diagnostic logs.

We collect information directly from you, from your browser or device when you use the site, from payment and service providers that support the booking process, from property operations teams, and from booking, calendar, pricing, or review sources used to operate listings.

We use your information to confirm reservations, process payments and refunds, send booking-related emails, verify guest identity, prepare rental agreements, coordinate check-in and check-out, respond to support requests, prevent fraud or misuse, comply with tax and legal obligations, and improve the site and guest experience.

We may send transactional emails about your booking, including confirmations, pre-arrival instructions, check-out reminders, cancellation notices, and administrative updates. These are part of providing your stay and are not marketing newsletters.

We may also use information to maintain accurate business records, manage availability and pricing, enforce house rules and rental agreements, investigate disputes or chargebacks, protect the safety of guests, neighbors, hosts, and properties, and comply with lawful requests.

We share information only as needed to operate the booking and stay. This may include payment processing through Stripe, email delivery providers, cloud storage providers, website hosting and analytics providers, booking, calendar, pricing, or review services, cleaning or property support teams, professional advisors, insurers, payment networks, banks, and government or law-enforcement authorities when required or appropriate under law.

We may share information during a business transaction, such as a sale, merger, financing, reorganization, or transfer of assets, subject to reasonable confidentiality protections where appropriate.

We do not sell your personal information. We also do not knowingly share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. If that practice changes, we will update this policy and provide any legally required choices.

Identity photos are used to help verify the booking guest and protect the property, neighbors, other guests, and our business from fraud, misuse, or safety issues. They may contain sensitive personal information. Please do not upload more information than is reasonably needed to verify your identity.

Access is limited to authorized administrators and service providers who need it for booking review, dispute handling, fraud prevention, property safety, chargebacks, insurance, or legal compliance.

Our routine cleanup process is designed to delete identity photos for confirmed or completed bookings after the post-checkout review period, generally seven days after checkout, and to remove identity photos associated with abandoned unpaid bookings after they expire.

We keep identity photos only as long as reasonably needed for those purposes, unless a longer period is required to resolve a dispute, enforce our agreements, support insurance or chargeback matters, or comply with law.

Stripe processes payment information under its own privacy and security practices. Your use of Stripe checkout may also be governed by Stripe's terms and privacy policy.

We may use Stripe transaction details to confirm payment, issue refunds, investigate disputes, and maintain booking and tax records.

The site may use cookies, local storage, server logs, and similar technologies to keep the site working, protect forms from abuse, understand traffic patterns, remember booking flow state, and improve performance.

You can adjust cookie settings in your browser. Some booking features may not work correctly if required cookies or storage are disabled.

Some third-party services, including payment, hosting, analytics, maps, or security providers, may use their own cookies or similar technologies under their own policies.

We retain booking, payment, tax, agreement, and guest communication records for as long as needed to provide services, comply with legal and tax obligations, resolve disputes, enforce agreements, and maintain accurate business records.

When information is no longer needed, we delete it or de-identify it where reasonably practical.

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect guest information. No internet or storage system is perfectly secure, but we work to limit access and use trusted providers for sensitive workflows such as payment processing.

You may contact us at [email protected] to request access, correction, or deletion of personal information we maintain about you. We may need to keep certain records where required for bookings, taxes, fraud prevention, disputes, or legal compliance.

If you receive a booking-related email, you can reply directly for help. Because those messages are transactional, we may still need to send them while you have an active or recent reservation.

Depending on where you live, you may have additional privacy rights, such as rights to know, access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of certain personal information, or to opt out of certain uses. We will respond to applicable privacy requests as required by law.

Some U.S. state privacy laws require businesses that meet certain thresholds to provide additional notices and choices. We do not intend this site to sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

If you believe a state privacy law applies to your request, contact us at [email protected] and include your state of residence and the right you wish to exercise. We may need to verify your request before acting on it.

This site is intended for adults who can enter into a short-term rental agreement. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13. Children may stay only as guests of an adult booking guest.

The site and services are operated from the United States. If you access the site from outside the United States, you understand that your information may be processed and stored in the United States, where privacy laws may differ from those in your location.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The updated version will be posted on this page with a new effective date.