Can someone please advise on what is a reasonable but strong step to take to tackle the following:
I received a call from Rightmove asking me to provide a reference for a person I didn’t recognise, as I was down as his landlord.
On enquiry, I discovered that my tenant had passed on my details, without permission, to her stepbrother who’d been staying with her for weeks (unbeknown to me), in order to get into a new accommodation himself. I warned her against breaching confidentiality and data protection. She made several idiotic excuses (like she passed on my details to him but told him not to use them) but she also apologised.
I was on the cusp on terminating the tenancy, but I don’t really want to. I am quite disturbed by what could be happening, but is there a formal warning I can issue to send a strong message ensure this doesn’t happen again?
You have spoken to her & she has apologised. No-one died. It would, in my opinion, seem somewhat of an over-reaction. They havn’t broken any laws, or any terms of their tenancy agreement, albeit it would have been courteous of them to speak to you first.
Not at all an over reaction. In a world where people can steal your identity, I don’t think someone passing all of my details to a person I don’t know is a trivial matter (imagine it was the other way round). However, I have been and I am very reasonable but I just wondered if I should formalise my response, as it was all done on Whatsapp. Of course no one died, but if they did, it’d be my responsibility somehow!
Your name and address is probably out there in the public domain anyway. Landlords almost always have to register with the Information Commissioners Office and the register is a public record on their website. If you and your property are licensed by the local authority then the register of licensees is published on the Council website.
Passing your name and address to someone is not enough for them to steal your identity. I would agree that this seems a bit of an over-reaction, although it was right to let the tenant know that you cannot provide references to their guests.
So would you suggest a more formal way of communicating to the tenant that so they can’t give out my details to a guest wanting a reference without my knowledge, or is saying it on whatsapp once is enough? I hope that my phone number isn’t public and that was what concerned me.