There are growing calls to regulate the personal information real estate agents can request from potential tenants, with renters asked to hand over 12 months’ worth of bank statements, their personal social media profiles and in one case, whether they had prominent tattoos.
Paris Zarmairian was applying for a rental at the end of May in Sydney when her agent asked her to provide 12 months’ worth of bank statements.
The sole trader works as a consultant and advocate in the disability sector, and makes enough to comfortably cover the rent.
“I had supplied invoices, plus a letter from an accountant that I had previously used to apply for a loan at Toyota, and that was recent, it was only written end of last year … and a bank statement for the last couple of months.
“They said that that wasn’t enough. ‘How does that prove if you have been paid?’” she said.
“The information was more than what Toyota wanted for my business car loan.”
Zarmairian told them she wouldn’t supply it and has ended up in a different rental, but she said the request felt “incredibly invasive”.
“There is no logic as to why they would need an entire year’s worth of bank statements,” she said.
In 2020 Ness, who did not want her last name used, was applying for a property in Kirrawee in Sydney, when the agent rang to ask if her husband, who is a tattooist, had neck tattoos.
Ness lied and said he didn’t – and 20 minutes later her rental application was approved. For the year the couple lived in the property , he waited outside during inspections or rugged up to cover his tattoos.
The couple had to share their social media profiles in their rental application, and Ness believed the agents checked them before they approved their lease.
“It annoyed me a lot and made me concerned to bring him to look at new houses when we moved,” she said.
Rental agents are allowed to ask for whatever information they deem fit, in every state except Victoria, where they can’t ask if tenants have taken legal action with a provider, to see daily transactions, a bond history, or about personal attributes such as race, gender and disability.
In New South Wales, the better regulation and fair trading minister, Anoulack Chanthivong, said the amount of data potentially being collected was “extraordinary”.The government was working on developing regulations for what information can be asked for and kept on file.
“For the most part, the collection and use of renters’ data hasn’t been regulated. Renters rightly feel uneasy and this is a big risk in a world of increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks,” Chanthivong said.
The Real Estate Institute of Australia president, Hayden Groves, said asking for six months of bank statements if the tenant was self-employed was acceptable. But any more, or asking for social media accounts or if they had tattoos, was “irrelevant” and “unnecessary”.
Agents should be looking for information on if a tenant can service their rent and any other information was irrelevant, he said.
“There are no specific legal guidelines around the information requested by managing agents: there are code-of-conduct provisions that insist an agent must act ‘ethically and honestly’ in their dealings,” Groves said.
The Tenants’ Union of NSW chief executive, Leo Patterson Ross, likened the application process to a “wild west”.
Patterson Ross said there needed to be a standardised form and a clear guide on how to assess the capacity to pay rent as some agents used 30% of income, while others used 40%.
“It all comes down to agents having no real kind of structure to how they assess the application,” he said. “They assess everyone in a group, so it’s a competitive process, rather than assessing people on their own merits.”
Patterson Ross said a fair system would have agents assess applications one by one.
“The only relevant question is, is this person able to sustain the tenancy,” he said.
Other renters across the country said they had to provide a lot of references, sometimes up to six per person, and their social media accounts. In one case in Melbourne, the agent rang their boss, despite the would-be tenants submitting payslips.
Anthony Ziebell, an administrator of Don’t Rent Me, a Facebook group set up to help tenants, said some applications even asked if the tenants posted about rental issues on social media.
“Prospective renters are being asked for their bank and savings account balances, whether they post about rental issues on social media, and if they have ever breached a landlord or property agent,” he said.
“Applicants for mortgages – who represent a significantly larger financial risk to banks than tenants do to landlords – often do not undergo anywhere near the same level of scrutiny,” he said.
