Nicola Kelland - Private information?

This has been a hot topic recently after complaints were made to an Auckland Real Estate company from potential purchasers. The complainants said that after visiting an open home where their details were recorded that they were contacted by a financial services person asking if they were interested in purchasing a mortgage or organising finance for a property.

I believe that this is a blatant breach of the Privacy Act and this information should never be given or sold to a third party. I do believe this was an isolated case but it is concerning for the public and the industry. If in doubt, when visiting an open home, ask the agent if any third party will be given their details.

The Privacy Act also prevents me from reporting on the sale price of a property that Kellands has sold without permission of both the vendor and the purchaser, until that information is in the public domain, usually when the property is settled.  This might be several months after the property has been transacted. The same is true for other Real Estate companies’ sales, which we can access via the sales reporting arm of REINZ. We can use that information in the preparation of a market appraisal for a property but we can’t publish the information. The only exception to this rule is when a property is sold under the hammer at a public auction, as the result is freely available to everyone who is there.

Some contracts for the sale and purchase of a property specifically exclude the reporting of the sale and/or the sale price by way of a confidentiality agreement, which binds the Real Estate Agency and/or the Vendors and Purchaser from reporting the sale. Therefore the transaction is not recorded at the time of sale with the REINZ and will only be accessible once the sale is settled.

At Kellands we pride ourselves on keeping our clients and our customers information private, you will not see us blowing our trumpet in the media about “who has purchased what and for how much”, it is not our style; we like to keep your valuable information private unless you give us approval.