Finance & real estate
Cloud backup for estate agents and property managers
Mindtime copies your mailboxes, shared drives, laptops and phones to its own Tier III data centres in the Netherlands and Germany. The copies are immutable and one is kept air-gapped, so a deleted folder or a ransomware attack does not take your sales files with it.
In Dutch, German or English.
- NL · DEStored only in our own Tier III data centres in the Netherlands and Germany
- ImmutableObject Lock storage plus an air-gapped copy; every backup job is checked
- ISO 27001 · NEN 7510Audited security, with a data processing agreement in every contract
- NL · DE · ENSupport from people, no offshore call centres or chatbots
In short
Estate agents need an independent backup because a sale depends on documents spread across email, shared drives and phones, and the Wwft requires you to keep client due diligence records. Mindtime backs up Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, laptops and servers to its own data centres in the Netherlands and Germany, as immutable copies with every job checked.
What's at stake
The data estate and property agents can't afford to lose
Sales and rental files
Listing agreements, measurement reports, the purchase agreement and your correspondence with the buyer's agent and the notary. If these disappear before the transfer, you cannot show what was agreed.
Wwft due diligence records
Copies of ID documents, UBO checks and risk assessments for buyers and sellers. You must be able to produce them for the supervisor long after the deal has closed.
Photos, floor plans and viewing notes
Listing photos, floor plans and the notes from viewings take real effort to produce for every property. They often exist in one place only: a phone, a laptop or a single shared drive.
Rules and obligations
What the rules ask of estate and property agents
Summarised from the sources listed at the bottom of this page. This is general information, not legal advice.
Estate agents fall under the Wwft
The Wwft, the Dutch anti-money-laundering act, applies to anyone who professionally mediates in concluding agreements on real estate. That includes estate agents acting for buyers or sellers. [1]
Keep due diligence data for five years
You must establish who your client and its ultimate beneficial owner are, and report unusual transactions. The data from that customer due diligence must be kept for five years after the transaction or after the business relationship ends. [2]
The DFEI supervises estate agents
Since 1 January 2026, the Bureau Toezicht Wwft and the Bureau Economische Handhaving have continued together as the Dienst Financieel-Economische Integriteit (DFEI). This Belastingdienst service supervises estate agents and other non-financial professions under the Wwft. [3]
Seven years for the business administration
For tax purposes, the Belastingdienst sets a seven-year retention period for your administration. That covers invoices, commission statements and the records behind them. [5]
Outside the Cyberbeveiligingswet
Real estate is not one of the sectors the NCSC lists for the Cyberbeveiligingswet, the Dutch NIS2 law, so estate agencies are generally outside its scope. The GDPR (AVG) does apply to the personal data in your files. [6]
When it goes wrong
The folder nobody missed until the supervisor asked
Illustrative example: an office manager tidies up the agency's shared drive and deletes the folder with last year's sales files by mistake. Nobody notices until the supervisor asks for the due diligence file on one of those sales, more than two months later, long after the Drive trash has been emptied. With Mindtime, the folder is restored from a backup made before the deletion. The agency hands over the file on time, without asking clients for their documents again.
How Mindtime protects it
Backup for estate and property agents, workload by workload
- Google Workspace backupMany agencies run on Gmail and shared drives, where deleted items only stay recoverable for a limited time.
- Microsoft 365 backupAgencies on Outlook and OneDrive need the same independent copy of their mail and sales files.
- Laptop and endpoint backupPhotos, viewing notes and scanned IDs often sit on laptops and phones before they reach a shared drive.
- NAS backupOlder sales files and photo archives on a Synology or QNAP NAS need an off-site, immutable copy.
The software you use, and what we protect around it
| Realworks | Cloud CRM for Dutch estate agents. For SaaS like this, check Realworks' export and retention terms; Mindtime protects the mail, shared drives and laptops around it. |
|---|---|
| Kolibri | Software for listings, relations, contracts and scheduling. Check the supplier's export and retention terms; Mindtime backs up the Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 data and the devices your team uses alongside it. |
| Funda | The listing portal where your properties appear. Keep the original photos, texts and floor plans on your own drives, which Mindtime backs up. |
| Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 | Viewing requests, offers and signed documents in Gmail, Outlook, Drive or OneDrive. Mindtime backs up both, with a 7-day free trial. |
Google Workspace
Google Workspace backup for estate agents
Many agencies run on Gmail and Google Drive: a shared drive per property, viewing requests in a shared inbox, and signed contracts stored in Drive. Google keeps the service running, but recovering what your own people delete only works for a limited time.
- Items left in the Drive trash for more than 30 days are deleted permanently. After a user empties the trash, an administrator has 25 days to recover the files before Google purges them.
- Google's own Vault FAQ states that Vault isn't designed to be a backup or archive tool. If you delete a user account, its data is removed and can no longer be searched or exported in Vault.
- Mindtime backs up Gmail, Drive and shared drives to its own data centres in the Netherlands and Germany, as immutable copies with every backup job checked.
- Try Google Workspace backup free for 7 days, with support in Dutch, German and English.
Before you switch
What estate and property agents ask us first
Our CRM is in the cloud. Why would we need a backup?
The CRM supplier looks after its own platform, under its own export and retention terms. Your due diligence copies, contracts and photos usually also live in mail, shared drives and on laptops. Mindtime backs up those, and every backup job is checked.
Does a backup create extra work for the office?
Once it is set up, backups run automatically and Mindtime monitors them 24/7. You can try Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 backup free for 7 days, and if you have questions, you talk to people in Dutch, German or English rather than a chatbot.
Where do our clients' ID copies end up?
In Mindtime's own Tier III data centres in the Netherlands and Germany, and nowhere else. Data is encrypted with AES-256 in transit, admin actions require MFA, and a data processing agreement is part of every contract.
FAQ
Questions about backup for estate and property agents
How long must an estate agent keep Wwft records?
The Belastingdienst says customer due diligence data must be kept for five years after the transaction or after the business relationship has ended. Your tax administration has a separate seven-year period. A backup with immutable copies makes sure those records survive deletions and ransomware for as long as you need them.
Who supervises estate agents under the Wwft?
Since 1 January 2026, the Dienst Financieel-Economische Integriteit (DFEI), part of the Belastingdienst, supervises estate agents under the Wwft. It was formed from the Bureau Toezicht Wwft and the Bureau Economische Handhaving. When the DFEI asks for a client file, you need to be able to find it, complete.
Does NIS2 apply to estate agencies?
Generally not. Real estate is not one of the sectors listed for the Cyberbeveiligingswet, the Dutch NIS2 law that took effect on 15 August 2026. You still handle sensitive personal data such as ID copies and income details, so the GDPR (AVG) applies, and a reliable backup is part of keeping that data available.
Can we back up phones used for viewings?
Yes. Mindtime's endpoint backup covers mobile devices as well as Windows, macOS and Linux laptops. Photos and notes taken during viewings are then protected even before someone uploads them to the shared drive or the CRM. If a phone is lost or breaks during a busy week, the material can be restored to its replacement.
See it with your own data
Book a 15-minute demo
We show you a backup and a restore, and answer your questions in Dutch, German or English. No offshore call centres, no chatbots.