Playbook, estate agency
Take me off your list is not the same as delete my file
An agency accumulates more personal material than almost any business its size. A referencing pack carries income, employment and credit detail. A right to rent check leaves copies of identity documents. A tenancy leaves a file and a rent ledger that outlive the tenancy. The person typing usually wants the property alerts to stop, which takes a moment. Occasionally they mean the referencing pack, and that request runs straight into records the agency is required to keep and records that were never the agency's alone.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for data deletion requests holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Three separate piles sit behind one sentence: a marketing register somebody can leave immediately, an applicant file held for a stated period, and tenancy records tied to obligations that continue after the tenant has moved out.
- Copies taken for a right to rent check exist because a check was required of the agency, so they are not an ordinary marketing record and the retention answer for them is a different answer.
- On a tenant find instruction the file was handed to the landlord at the start of the tenancy, so the agency may not be the only holder, and telling somebody their data is gone when a landlord still has a copy is worse than saying nothing.
- Deposit records sit inside a protection scheme rather than in the agency's own systems, so a deletion request touching those has to be routed rather than answered, and the agency cannot edit them on anybody's behalf.
How it arrives
- how do i stop getting property alerts
- please delete my details
- what did you do with the id you photocopied
- how long do you keep referencing information
- take me off your applicant register
- who has my information now i have moved out
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Your retention schedule, by record type | How long you hold an applicant enquiry, a referencing pack, identity check copies, a tenancy file and financial records, with the reason for each period. One blanket number is useless here, because the whole difficulty is that the periods differ. |
|---|---|
| Where a request goes and how you identify the requester | The named address for these, what you need to be satisfied the person is who they say, and how long you take to respond. Identity matters more than usual in this trade, since a request about a tenancy file could come from either party to a dispute. |
| What happens to right to rent check copies | Why they were taken, how long they are held, and how they are disposed of. Applicants remember handing over a passport far longer than they remember filling in a form, and this is the record they ask about first. |
| The alert and register unsubscribe route | How somebody comes off the mailing list, how quickly, and what stays behind afterwards. Being clear that leaving the alerts does not empty a tenancy file prevents the second, angrier message a fortnight later. |
The reply
There are two different things here and it is worth knowing which you want. Coming off the property alerts and the applicant register is straightforward and the route is set out on the privacy page [1]. Deleting a referencing or tenancy file is a separate request, and some of that material we are required to hold for a set period after a tenancy ends, which the same page lists by record type [2]. I cannot see, change or remove anything myself. Give me your name and an email and I will pass the request to the person who handles them, and they will confirm what can go and what has to stay for now.
It names the cheap request and the expensive one in the first two sentences so the visitor can pick, which resolves most of these without a person. Saying the retention periods differ by record type is more honest than a single number and it is the actual reason the answer is complicated. The refusal is flat and early, because a hint of capability here creates an expectation that the file has already gone.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor asks about a specific file, tenancy, document or identity copy, or wants confirmation that something has been removed.
I have no way to look at what is held about you and no way to delete anything, so I do not want to guess at either. Leave your name and an email and this goes to the person who deals with these requests, who can actually check.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never confirm what the agency holds about a named individual, because the person typing has not been identified and a tenancy file has two sides who both want to know what is in it.
- Never state that a record has been deleted, since the assistant cannot write anywhere and a false confirmation ends the person's inquiry at exactly the wrong moment.
- Never promise a deletion the retention schedule does not permit, as an agency that has committed in writing to remove something it must keep has created a second problem.
- Never treat an unsubscribe from alerts as an erasure request, or an erasure request as an unsubscribe, because both mistakes look like evasion afterwards.
Questions
- Can it actually remove anybody from anything?
- No. It cannot write to any system, so every request it receives is a message forwarded to whoever handles them. What it can do is explain which of the several things people mean by delete, which is most of the work and all of the confusion.
- Is it risky to publish retention periods?
- It is riskier not to. The periods are the answer to the question, and an applicant told only that data is kept securely asks again, more sharply. Publish the schedule by record type and the assistant will quote it instead of improvising a number.
- What about a former tenant in a deposit dispute?
- Route it immediately and answer nothing. A request that arrives while a deduction is being argued about is part of that argument, the deposit records sit with the scheme rather than with you, and this is not a conversation for a chat window.
Keep reading
- Everything for a estate agencyViewings, fees, referencing and deposit rules are answerable at any hour. Valuing a property or discussing an offer is not.
- Handling data deletion requests in generalA deletion request is a request with a clock on it, not a question. The characteristic failure is silence, so it always has to reach a person.
- Three cancellations that share a word and nothing elseA viewing is a courtesy call, a sole agency instruction has a tie in and a notice period, and a buyer before exchange owes nothing.
- The money in question is usually not the agency's moneyMost of what gets called a refund here is money the agency never earned: a scheme's deposit, client rent, a supplier already paid.
- Two documents, and neither of them behaves like a billA rent statement is a record of deductions, and the seller's commission invoice is usually settled by a conveyancer out of the sale.
Try it on your own material
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