Privacy Commissioner John Edwards has this morning announced he's launching a probe into what personal information landlords demand from prospective tenants and how they use, or potentially abuse, it.
Edwards said his office had been made aware that some property management agencies and landlords were asking for very detailed information from prospective tenants as part of their selection process, while others were using public forums to compile lists of so-called "bad tenants".
"I am concerned about some of the practices we are seeing, particularly during a time when pressure on tenants is high," he said in a statement this morning, referring to high demand for tenants to get into properties.
"Landlords are able to collect information to assess whether a tenant can pay rent, however, collecting their bank statements to gauge how they spend their money is unfair and unreasonably intrusive. Landlords should only collect the minimum amount of personal information necessary to make that decision.
"I will be engaging with the sector in coming weeks to ensure that landlords and property managers understand their Privacy Act obligations and are acting in accordance with them. I would also like to hear from tenants who have concerns around the use of their personal information."
Edwards told Breakfast this morning anecdotes of intrusive vetting from renters had been "rumbling along" for years, but that there had been an up-tick in recent months.
As for the "bad tenants" lists, he said he was "a bit concerned".
New Zealand Property Investors' Federation's Andrew King says he doesn't agree with landlords compiling "bad tenants" lists as the Privacy Commissioner launches a probe.
"We've seen media reports that some groupings of landlords or property managers are coming together and pooling information about people that they think are bad tenants.
"When the media reports came these websites clamped down and shut their privacy settings so we haven't been able to look at them."
However, Edwards said if any tenants believe they've ended up on one of the lists, they are entitled to ask for access to all that information and check that it's accurate.
New Zealand Property Investors' Federation's Andrew King told Breakfast that blacklisting tenants was morally wrong, but added that there was a growing concern from landlords about getting the "wrong" person as new laws are set to come into effect.
Phase two of changes to tenancy laws come into effect on February 11, which as a whole make it more difficult for property owners to get rid of renters.
King said he agreed with a lot of the release from Edwards this morning, including that a landlord doesn't need to know gender, marital status and detailed bank reports.
However, he added that as new laws come into effect, "you are probably going to want to know a bit more information than you did in the past".
"So previously you might ask 'have you got a job?', 'yes', 'great, sweet, that's fine'. But now you might say 'who is that with? What are you doing? What hours are you working? Who can I contact?' to make absolutely sure that what you've been told is truthful.
"What we are saying is we are actually providing that property to a tenant and we need to ask some questions of that tenant to make sure that they are actually the right person."
King said he wasn't aware of "bad tenant" blacklists. There is a 'Bad Tenants, New Zealand (landlords only)' Facebook page which has 3300 members.
"We don't agree with that," he said.
"There's no way that a tenant can actually go onto that site to put their side of the argument and it does seem very one-sided so potentially it's not even legal, but we just don't think that it's a moral thing to do."
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