Is tenant correspondence subject to data protection?

@Leslie

Before you get yourself into untold trouble with the council please read this

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/damp-and-mould-understanding-and-addressing-the-health-risks-for-rented-housing-providers/understanding-and-addressing-the-health-risks-of-damp-and-mould-in-the-home--2

There you will see the damp is now THE LANDLORDS PROBLEM in all cases.

If you need help to deal with the council without further incriminating yourself please get professional representation

Sounds as though you are better off just selling it and let someone else have the problem.

Put the money in the bank and avoid all the hassle of being a landlord.

Returns on, say, a tracker fund, may well be as good, or better, than BTLs, and you avoid the risks of penalties, uninsured works, the admin of dealing with hundreds of regulations, etc!

Reply to the comment left by Ryan Stevens at 10/12/2024 - 11:03
Hi Ryan, Can you explain what you mean by tracker fund? I have heard things such as the obvious stocks and shares to the lesser known bitcoin - but never heard of this.

From personal bitter experience - the local authority will not give up. All complaints will become greatly exaggerated. The local authority will not be remotely interested in damage etc caused by your tenant. It will be your responsibility to put right.
If you give notice to your tenant the local authority will provide legal aid to your tenant to fight repossession.
It is nigh on impossible to fight the local authority.

All landlords need to issue a copy of their GDPR Privacy Notice to the tenant at the earliest opportunity, (usually during the application process) and this should cover how the tenants data will be stored, used, shared and ultimately deleted. The Notice should make clear that information may be shared with the local authority, usually under the legitimate interest gateway. This then covers the landlord against claims of breach of data protection.

If in hardcopy, No

If on a computer, Yes (letters/emails etc)

But if you type a letter on your computer/laptop/phone then print it off and DO NOT save it, No

Reply to the comment left by DPT at 10/12/2024 - 11:46
And be registered annually with the ICO

Reply to the comment left by Des Taylor & Phil Turtle, Landlord Licensing & Defence at 10/12/2024 - 10:56
Mould may be the landlord's problem, but it is usually the tenant that causes the problem, and the landlord has NO control over the tenant. Rocks and hard places spring to mind!

Reply to the comment left by Des Taylor & Phil Turtle, Landlord Licensing & Defence at 10/12/2024 - 10:56Des
It's not quite as bad as that but I accept the document you refer to is pretty one-sided. Dealing with "underlying causes" may mean opening the windows so the property is ventilated, turning the tenant's heating up (one of mine kept the thermometer at 16 degrees), removing the tenant's damp laundry from the living room and putting it in the bathroom and opening the bathroom window.
Probably not quite what the leftie draftsman had in mind but as the vast majority of problems are caused by tenant behaviour, there it is! You should write to the tenant in terms that an intelligent 8 year old child could understand explaining what has caused the damp and what the tenant needs to do to tackle it. If there are structural problems with the property, you must address those yourself.
The obvious point to make is that damp and mould don't appear to be a problem for owner/occupiers. The tenant's lack of funds to pay for heating or to put the tumble dryer on does not make the landlord responsible.
To answer Leslie's specific question, you have a legitimate ground for sharing with the Council the correspondence so I don't think GDPR is an issue.

Reply to the comment left by Judith Wordsworth at 10/12/2024 - 13:16
Yes, ICO registration is usually necessary too. Incidentally, hard copy data is still subject to data protection. There is a limited exemption from ICO registration for landlords who keep no electronic data, just paper copies, provided they are not organised into any filing system.