Landlords Records

Records Landlords Should Keep Safe:

When you let out your rental property to tenants as a landlord you are in possession of lots of sensitive personal information. You have a responsibility in law to keep this information confidential, safe and secure.

You need to keep the information you have about the tenant on the Tenancy Application Form to show that you had permission to do Credit Checks & References and also in case you have problems later - you may need to do a trace on an absonding tenant.

The information landlords possess:

Tenancy Application Form with National Insurance, Passport, Drivers license, Bank Details etc. In fact all the information a criminal would need to steal someones identity.
Standing Order Mandates with Bank Details.
Tenancy Agreement
Inventory
Documents with Photographs
Indentity Certificate
Tenancy Depsoit Documents
References landlords give about tenants - stick trictly to the facts.

Principles of the Data Protection Act

The Data Protection Act gives individuals the right to know what information is held about them. It provides a framework to ensure that personal information is handled properly.

The Act states that anyone who processes personal information must comply with eight principles, which make sure that personal information is:

Fairly and lawfully processed
Processed for limited purposes
Adequate, relevant and not excessive
Accurate and up to date
Not kept for longer than is necessary
Processed in line with your rights
Secure
Not transferred to other countries without adequate protection

The Act provides that individuals with important rights, including the right to find out what personal information is held on computer and most paper records.

If an individual or organisation feels they're being denied access to personal information they're entitled to, or feel their information has not been handled according to the eight principles, they can seek enforcement.