Landlords and letting agents handling tenant data now need a clear route for complaints under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, adding another compliance step for anyone collecting personal information in the private rented sector.
The change means landlords must be able to receive and acknowledge complaints about data use, even if formal disputes remain rare. Industry guidance says receipt should be acknowledged within 30 days, with the complaint then investigated and addressed within a reasonable period.
For landlords, this is a small rule on paper but a real risk in practice. Anyone taking applications, storing ID, handling guarantor details or using messaging platforms with tenants now needs to show they can deal properly with a privacy complaint if one lands.
What the new rule changes
The core shift is procedural rather than dramatic. Landlords do not necessarily need a long written policy if they are small-scale, but they do need a clear contact route and a workable process. That could be as simple as a dedicated email address, so long as complaints are not ignored or left sitting without acknowledgement.
The point matters because rental businesses routinely hold passport details, bank information, addresses, employment references and communication histories. A complaint might concern how that data was stored, shared, retained or used in decision-making.
This follows Landlord Knowledge’s earlier coverage of informal landlord practices, which showed some landlords still cut corners on basic paperwork. The latest rule adds another reason to tighten systems before a tenant, guarantor or applicant asks awkward questions.
Social media complaints still count
One practical warning from industry guidance is that complaints made through social media can still count as complaints. That means a message sent through Facebook, Instagram or another public channel should not be ignored simply because it did not arrive by email.
Landlords who self-manage may be most exposed here, especially if enquiries come in through several channels and records are patchy. It is easy to imagine a complaint getting lost between a personal inbox, a letting app and a phone message.
There is also a wider compliance overlap. A landlord who cannot explain where tenant data sits, who has access to it, and how complaints are handled is likely to look weak in other areas too. That could matter when dealing with agents, redress bodies or any later dispute over referencing or tenant selection.
The legal change sits under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, which updates parts of the wider UK data framework. Recent enforcement moves across the sector have already pushed landlords to keep cleaner records and tighter audit trails. In that context, a data complaint process is less a one-off admin task and more another sign that amateur systems are becoming harder to defend.
What this means for landlords
- If you self-manage: set up a dedicated email address for data complaints and keep a simple log of when issues are received and answered.
- If you use an agent: confirm who deals with tenant data complaints and whether the process is written into your management terms.
- Watch for: complaints arriving through social media or messaging apps rather than formal channels.
- Bottom line: even small landlords now need a basic, provable process for privacy complaints.
Editor’s view
This is the kind of rule landlords can dismiss until the first complaint arrives. The smart move is to make the process boring and simple now, rather than scramble after a tenant asks where their data went.
Author: Editorial Team – UK landlord & buy-to-let news, policy, and finance
Published: 25 June 2026
Sources: Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, NRLA guidance
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