How we handle your information.
A custom home project involves a great deal of personal detail: where you are building, what you can spend, how you want to live. This policy sets out exactly what we collect, why we hold it, who else sees it, and what you can ask us to do about it.
Last updated July 26, 2026
Who this policy covers
This policy explains how Tropical Tides Custom Homes handles personal information collected through tropicaltidesnc.com, including the project inquiry form, the client workspace, and ordinary correspondence by email and phone. Tropical Tides Custom Homes is a design and construction practice based in Southport, North Carolina, working primarily in Brunswick, New Hanover, and Pender Counties.
It applies to prospective clients who contact us, to active clients using the workspace, and to anyone browsing the public pages of the site. It does not cover third-party websites we link to, including our social media profiles, which are governed by their own policies.
Information we collect
Information you give us directly
The project inquiry form asks for your name, email address, project location, timeline, lot status, primary need, and a free-text description of your vision and constraints. All of it is optional in the sense that you choose whether to submit the form at all; name, email, and project location are required to send it.
If you call or email us, we keep that correspondence as part of the project record. If you send us documents such as surveys, plans, covenants, or lender letters, we retain them so the design work can proceed.
Client workspace information
Clients with workspace access have an account secured by a password we store only as a hash, never in readable form. Inside the workspace we hold the material that makes up the project record: drawings and document versions, selection and decision history, message threads, milestone dates, and the identity and timestamp attached to each of those entries. That attribution is the point of the workspace, and it is visible to you and to the Tropical Tides team working on your project.
Information collected automatically
Public pages load Google Analytics, which sets cookies and records pages viewed, approximate location derived from IP address, referring source, and general device and browser characteristics. Analytics does not run on the client workspace, the project manager workspace, or the admin workspace; those surfaces are excluded in code, not merely by configuration.
Our hosting and content delivery providers keep standard server logs, which include IP addresses, request times, and user agent strings. Signed-in sessions rely on a first-party session cookie that identifies your session to the application. It is required for the workspace to function and is not used for advertising.
How we use information
We use the information described above to operate the design and construction relationship and for no unrelated purpose. Specifically:
- To respond to project inquiries and determine whether a project is a fit for the practice.
- To perform the work: site analysis, design development, documentation, procurement, and coordination with the partners who execute construction.
- To operate the client workspace, including authentication, document access, decision records, and message threads.
- To keep an accurate project record so that decisions, versions, and approvals can be traced later.
- To send you information about your own project. We do not send marketing email from the site, and the inquiry form does not subscribe you to anything.
- To understand which pages of the public site are useful, in aggregate, through analytics.
- To meet legal, licensing, insurance, tax, and building-code obligations that apply to a licensed North Carolina general contractor.
We do not sell personal information. We do not share it with data brokers, and we do not use it to build advertising profiles.
How long information is kept
Inquiries that do not become projects are retained while there is a realistic prospect of working together, then removed on request or in the ordinary course of cleaning up records.
Project records are kept substantially longer, and deliberately so. Drawings, specifications, decision history, and correspondence are the evidence of what was designed, chosen, and built. North Carolina construction claims can arise years after completion, and warranty, insurance, licensing, and tax obligations all depend on those records existing. We keep them for the period those obligations require, and generally for the life of the structure where the record documents how the building was assembled.
Analytics data is retained according to the retention period configured in Google Analytics. Server logs rotate on our providers’ standard schedules.
How information is protected
Traffic to the site is encrypted in transit over HTTPS. Passwords are stored as hashes, not as recoverable text. Database connections are made over TLS.
Access to project material is enforced in the application on every request, not merely hidden in the interface: document downloads, message threads, decision records, and every data mutation check the requesting account’s role and its membership on that specific project before returning anything. The public marketing pages, the client workspace, the project manager workspace, and the admin workspace are separate surfaces with separate access rules.
No system is perfectly secure, and we do not claim otherwise. If you believe your account has been compromised, contact us immediately using the details below and we will disable the session and issue new credentials.
Your choices and rights
You can ask us to do any of the following, and we will respond within a reasonable period:
- Tell you what personal information we hold about you.
- Correct information that is inaccurate or out of date. Workspace users can update their own contact details directly in account settings.
- Delete information, subject to the record-keeping obligations described under retention. We will explain what we must keep and why.
- Provide a copy of the project material associated with your project.
- Stop contacting you, other than where communication is necessary to an active project or required by law.
Depending on where you live, you may have additional statutory rights over your personal information. Tell us what you are asking for and we will honor the request to the extent the law provides, without requiring you to name a particular statute.
Children’s privacy
This is a service for people commissioning residential construction. The site is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we will remove it.
Changes to this policy
When this policy changes, the revised version is posted here and the date at the top of the page is updated. Material changes affecting active clients will also be communicated through the workspace or by email.
How to reach us
Questions about this policy, or any request described above, can go to logan@tropicaltidesnc.com or 910-946-5512. Tropical Tides Custom Homes is based in Southport, North Carolina and holds North Carolina General Contractor License #109520.