'Breach of privacy': Prospective tenant asked to give value of personal belongings

The application form requires the tenant to list the value of their chattels. Photo / Supplied

A prospective tenant is bewildered after a property management company required her to list the value of her personal belongings on an application for a rental property.

The woman, who does not want to be identified, said the application form for the property she wanted to live in with her family asked her to list the value of her chattels.

Harcourts, the company managing the property she applied for, has said the application form was "outdated" and is being removed from circulation.

It comes just a couple of months after it was revealed landlords have been demanding copies of potential tenants' bank statements before agreeing to rent a house to them.

The Lower Hutt woman was looking for a place to live for her and her partner, his son, and her own daughter and daughter's partner.

She could not understand why Harcourts, the company requesting the information, needed to know the value of her belongings.

"I don't know why they need to know that, I don't like people knowing that besides my insurance agent."

The woman was worried about whether the information, which also included any car registration numbers for vehicles owned by tenants, would be securely stored online.

"I understand that landlords are protecting their assets ... [but] we're not all meth-producing, drug-tweaking, deadbeat debt-collectors. Tenants need their rights."

She contacted Harcourts to ask why the information was needed, but has not received a response.

Another person told her it was so the company knew the value of what was left behind if she "did a runner".

"That's a breach of privacy as far as I'm concerned."

She had not been asked for proof of income or anything of that sort, she said.

Harcourts Group Ltd chief executive Chris Kennedy apologised "unreservedly" for any inconvenience caused by the form.

"This is an outdated form provided by a third-party," he said in a statement.

"Harcourts are currently in the process of removing it from circulation."

Harcourts would not confirm how long the form had been used, when it was decided to remove it from circulation, or why the information was being requested in the first place.

New Zealand Property Investors Federation executive officer Andrew King said he couldn't see any reason why the information would be needed.

"I don't know why you'd need to know that," he said.

King said landlords in earlier years used to require tenants to have contents insurance, and some would even provide the insurance for them, so the form could date back to that practice.

The news earlier this year that landlords were making prospective tenants hand over bank statements caused the move to be labelled "unethical" by Consumer NZ.

Auckland-based property manager Rachel Kann told a social services select committee in July, which was hearing submissions on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill (No 2) to scrap letting fees, that she routinely asks for bank statements.

"They're paying somebody's mortgage and I see a lot of people who are low socio-economic and their bank statements literally will read, 'KFC, McDonalds, the dairy, KFC, McDonalds, court fine', trucks that they buy, goods that they can't afford. You know, I see a lot of mismanagement of money."

At the time, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner said it had concerns about the "growing number of cases" where landlords or property managers "seem to be collecting more personal information than they need from prospective tenants".

"Landlords should only collect the minimum amount of personal information necessary to make a decision on the tenancy application," a spokesman said.

Under the Privacy Act, if a landlord was collecting personal information from a tenant they must have a lawful purpose to do so; not collect information in an unfair, unlawful, or unreasonably intrusive way; and only use that information for a lawful purpose connected with their function.