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How do I revoke a home I have shared?

You revoke the share code inside HouseSense — and the recipient loses access immediately, both on the web and in the app.

How to revoke a code

Sharing in HouseSense hangs on a code, not on a person. That code is also the switch you turn off. The steps are:

1. Open the home in HouseSense.
2. Go into the sharing screen, where the active codes are listed, each with its own expiry date.
3. Select the code you want to close, and revoke it.
4. Confirm. Access ends immediately.

There is no delay and no "up to 24 hours". Once the code is revoked, the shared copy can no longer be retrieved — not by a buyer typing the code in on the web, and not by someone who already has the home open in their browser and hits refresh.

One code per recipient — that is why you can close selectively

If you are sharing the home with three different prospective buyers, make three codes rather than sending the same one around. HouseSense gives each share its own code precisely so they can be revoked individually.

The practical payoff shows up when one of them drops out. If all three were given the same code, you are left choosing between closing it for everyone or for no one. If each has their own, you close that one and let the other two keep looking. It is the same logic as a key per tradesperson rather than one key everyone borrows.

What the recipient loses — and what they may have kept

When you revoke the code, the access to the shared copy disappears. The home can no longer be downloaded, no longer shown on the web, and any embed on a website stops working.

But be clear on the limits of what a revocation can do: it cannot undo what the recipient has already seen or saved. If a buyer has taken a screenshot of the floor plan, that screenshot is still on their phone. If they imported the home into their own HouseSense while the code still worked, it now lives locally on their device. This is not specific to HouseSense — it applies to anything that has ever been shown on someone else's screen. Revoking closes future access, not the past.

What was never shared in the first place

Worth knowing when you are weighing how much harm an old code can do: the shared copy contains the home's drawings and figures — but not your photos and not your notes. The buyer sees the floor plan, the room layout, the measurements and the model. They do not see the photos you took during the scan, and not the remarks you wrote to yourself about the damp patch in the utility room.

So a forgotten code means someone can see the house's geometry for longer than you intended. That is a different thing from having leaked your private material.

The 30 days: why there is an expiry date

A share code in HouseSense expires automatically after 30 days. That is deliberate, and the reason is that people forget to clean up. A share link that keeps working forever is the most common way to end up sharing too much: the home was sold in March, and the link still works in November, because no one thought about it.

With an expiry date, the default state is that sharing closes itself. If a buyer needs access for longer than a month, you simply make a new code — that is a deliberate action, and that is the point.

See whether anyone has actually looked

HouseSense counts views of a shared home anonymously: how many times and when, not who. That is enough to answer the question sellers actually ask — "did the estate agent even open what I sent them?" — without building a record of who has looked at your house.

The count is also useful when you are tidying up. A code with zero views over the last couple of weeks is an obvious candidate for closing.

A standing routine: clean up once the deal is done

Three situations where it is worth going in and revoking straight away:

• The home has been sold. Close every code on that home. The prospective buyers who did not get it have no reason to keep seeing it.
• A buyer has dropped out. Close just their code. The others keep looking.
• The code has ended up somewhere it should not have. If it was forwarded in a group chat or posted somewhere public, revoke it and make a new one for the right recipients. The code is the access, so a scattered code is a scattered home.

If you delete the app while a code is still active

Pay attention to the order of operations: the shared copy does not live in your private iCloud, but in the area the buyer can read from. If you delete HouseSense without revoking the code first, you lose your own ability to close it, while the code keeps working until the 30 days run out.

So: revoke active codes before you delete the app or get rid of the phone. It takes a few seconds and is the one thing you cannot do afterwards.

In short

A shared home is withdrawn by revoking the code inside HouseSense, and access ends immediately. Make one code per recipient, so you can close selectively. A code expires on its own after 30 days, but do not wait for that once the deal is done — and remember to revoke before you delete the app.