Partner standards

How we choose the companies we link to, what they can and can't do with your information, and what gets a partner removed.

Last updated October 28, 2026.

One named partner, not a lead marketplace

HomeownerPedia has no lead forms. We never collect your name, phone number, email or address, so we have nothing to sell or share. When you use a "next step" on one of our guides, you go to the website of one named partner, and the page tells you who that partner is before you click. The only thing that travels with the click is a code that tells the partner which of our pages you came from. It carries no personal information.

What you enter on the partner's site goes to that partner, under its own privacy policy. We ask every partner to confirm, in writing, that information submitted through our links is used to serve your request and is not resold as a shared lead to other companies. Where a partner cannot confirm that, we say so on the page.

How a company becomes a partner

Before any partner link goes live, we check the company on the same points, in the same order:

1. Registration and licensing. The company is a registered business, and holds whatever license its state requires for the work (a real estate license, an insurance producer license, and so on).
2. Complaint history. We look up the company with the Better Business Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission's public actions and the attorney general in the states it serves. A pattern of unresolved complaints, or any enforcement action for deceptive marketing, is disqualifying.
3. Fees. For timeshare and solar contract help, a company that demands a large fee before any work is done is not featured. For home buyers and insurance quote services, any fee to the homeowner must be disclosed up front on the company's own site.
4. Promises. A company whose marketing guarantees an outcome, a price, a timeline or a refund is not featured. That is the same rule our own guides follow.
5. What you see before you sign. We go through the company's form and first steps as a homeowner would, to make sure costs and terms are visible before you commit to anything.

We don't accept payment to be listed, and placement is not for sale. Partners pay us a referral fee when you use their link; that fee never decides who is featured or in what order.

Extra rules for timeshare and solar

These are the two areas where homeowners are most often sold false hope. On top of the checks above, our guides in these categories always tell you to keep paying your loan, lease or fees while you look at options, to be wary of anyone asking for money before work is done, and to check any company with the FTC and your state regulator. A partner whose process contradicts that advice is not featured.

What gets a partner removed

• A new enforcement action or a pattern of reader complaints we can verify.
• A change to its fees, terms or marketing that would have failed the checks above.
• Failing to honor what its own site says about costs, timing or what happens to your information.

We review every partner at least twice a year and whenever a reader reports a problem. If you used a partner through our site and your experience didn't match what you read here, email hello@homeownerpedia.com. We read every message.

Where partners appear

Partners appear in exactly two places: the "next step" box on a guide, and the comparison section at the top of a category's main guide. Guide text itself never names or links to a partner. Every partner link is marked as sponsored in the page code, and every page with a partner link carries a disclosure naming the partner. The homepage, the FAQ, this page, the About page, the privacy policy and the terms of use carry no partner links.