Personal data is at the heart of real estate
Real estate transactions revolve around people and their data. As an estate agent, landlord, or property manager, you process personal data daily: identity documents of buyers and tenants, financial data for creditworthiness checks, tenancy agreements with personal details, and often photographs of residents.
The GDPR sets requirements for how you handle this data.
Step 1: Map your processing activities
Tenants and buyers:
- Identity data: name, address, date of birth, copy of identity document
- Financial data: proof of income, bank details, rental history
- Tenancy agreements and annexes
- Communication history
Sellers and landlords:
- Ownership details and land registry information
- Contact details and communication
- Financial data related to the sale
Business operations:
- Personnel data of your own employees
- Website with contact form and property search function
- CRM system with contacts
Step 2: Clean up your files
Real estate offices often keep more data than necessary, and for longer than permitted:
- Delete copies of identity documents for which you no longer have a legal basis
- Clean up former tenant files after the retention period expires
- Remove data of rejected tenant candidates after the selection process is completed
- Tidy your CRM - contacts with whom you no longer have a relationship
Step 3: Prepare your documentation
- Privacy policy for your website and office
- Processing register covering all processing activities
- Processing agreements with your CRM provider, accountant, and IT partner
- Retention policy per file type
- Information for tenants about which data you collect and why
Step 4: Train your team and maintain
Staff who manage tenant files must know which data they may request, how long to retain it, and how to respond to access requests. Schedule an annual refresher and combine it with file clean-up.
GDPRWise helps real estate professionals document their processing activities and generate the right documents.