I have just completed on my first property with a tenant in situ. As part of the conveyancing process my conveyancer supplied me with all info relating to the tenant and the tenancy. ID, contact details, reference checks etc. As completion was scheduled to take place on the same day the rent was due, I served notice on the tenant (a couple days before completion was scheduled to take place) as is my legal obligation under section 47 of the LL and Tenant Act 1987 to inform the tenant that I would become the LL and they should consider stoping their standing order to pay the current LL on the day of completion and to make the payment to myself instead.
The letting agent that looked after the property for the previous LL was surprised I had the tenants details and was put out by me contacting the tenant before completion had officially taken place, citing it was a breach of GDPR. He had a point although I said to the letting agent as I would be taking over the tenancy, I need to be satisfied before proceeding with the sale, who the tenant is and that all due diligence had been carried out before the tenancy was signed. My intention was to prevent the rent from being paid to the previous LL and then having to then chase its return. Completion on this property had already taken 6 months and I didn’t want any more aggravation. With the exception of me contacting the tenant before completion, have I or my conveyancer done anything wrong in relation to GDPR.
When it comes to processing tenant’s data it states “lawful basis”. And this data coming from original LL and if there is GDPR he is in breech but I consider him/her sharing the data have “lawful basis” due to sale process. It would be wrong to give tennants details to someone for marketing purposes etc. But this looks completely legitimate. I have no degree in law so this is my personal interpretation.
I agree with your interpretation completely. The funny thing is the information was provided to us by the same agency in the first place. The sales team who were selling the property provided the tenants info without the knowledge of the lettings team who were managing the property and the tenancy.
Sounds like the agent’s nose was out of joint and they were just being arsey with you. Technically, you should have registered with the ICO and served the tenant with your own GDPR privacy notice before receiving information on them, but there its extremely unlikely anyone will care if you just do that now.
The other thing is the lettings manager was obviously disappointed that I declined their offer to manage the property and decided to become difficult. Soon after completion was confirmed I called the agency to arrange for collection of the keys. They tried to give me the run around. When I called, I was told the lettings manager was out of the office and they would get him to call me. Four hours later, they still hadn’t called, so I called again and he still wasn’t available. As you can probably imagine, I was fuming. I said to the gentleman on the phone “I’m coming anyway.” I was at work and was planning to arrange for my daughter to collect the keys on my behalf. When I got there, they were as nice as pie and handed me the keys straight away. It should have been a happy occasion but I was so wound up it took me a fe hours after to cool down.
My intention is to self manage. If at sometime in the future I decide to use the services of an agency, after that experience I can assure you it won’t be that agency.
