Some estate and letting agents understood the importance of GDPR when the legislation first came into effect.
Others are still making mistakes.
We have been talking to a very irate landlord, who, after parting company submitted a Subject Access Request (SAR). The agent concerned had no idea that this was a legal requirement and no idea how to comply, which rather exposed their lack of prepardness ahead of the legislation coming into effect back in May 2018 and at every opportunity since then.
The agent clearly did a quick, panicked internet search and realised that they did in fact have a legal duty and lamely cherry picked a few safety compliance certificates by way of attempting to satisfy the demand. Needless to say, the landlord was even less happy with the poorly performing agents and their blatent disregard for the importance of complying with the SAR.
For anyone who has understood what data they hold and how it flows through the organisation, this should have been a simple matter to address, quickly and easily. A good Customer Relationship Management (CRM) databased would have allowed the agent to pull off all that was required with a single click.
Instead, the agent was stressed, as the enormity of the task begun to dawn on them (eventually!). Meanwhile, the landlord had no confidence in their data handling and fully intends to report them to the Information Commissioner's Office if they fail to meet deadline set out in the legislation.
If you have an estate or letting agency that would benefit from some refresher training on the requirements of GDPR contact us on 029 2070 3328 or via info@penarth.co.uk