Fair Trading Commissioner's Guidance

When a property is advertised

The following guidance is considered by the Fair Trading Commissioner to be best practice for landlords, agents and third party tenancy application platforms in dealing with tenants’ personal information.

For information about the general obligations that apply to real estate agents and the application of the Australian Privacy Principles to businesses that deal with personal information please see here.

When a property is advertised, prospective tenants generally attend open inspections and communicate with the landlord or agent via email and phone to find out more about the property and conditions of the tenancy.

At this time, only minimal information should be collected from a tenant and the consent of the prospective tenant should be obtained. For example, collection of a phone number or email address at an open inspection so that the agent can contact the prospective tenant to gauge their interest in the property would be considered reasonable.

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