As common as it may be today a particular member of Rent Check proceeded to take action that proved to have very uncommon results. Upon a move-out inspection, damage was discovered and promptly repaired to get the unit ready for re-rental. The amount of damages was more than normal wear and tear therefore reported to their Collection Agency for debt collection. Another common practice is for the Collection Agency to report all debts for collection to the Credit Bureau of choice. The Credit Bureau added the collection information to the tenants credit file also as a matter of course.

After their mortgage application was rejected the tenant sued the Credit Bureau, Collection Agency and finally the landlord. Ultimately the landlord was the party left responsible for releasing personal information about an unproven allegation of causing damage to the Collection Agency. Although settled out of court, the landlord was facing a possible mortgage payout to the tenant, the matter was settled out of court. In retrospect the landlord's lawyer reviewed Rent Check's consent language which has been endorsed by the Privacy Commission, and made a recommendation, adopt Rent Check's consent language for each tenancy applicant. I would not be writing this case study had this tenant signed Rent Check's consent. We know its importance is evident to our member housing providers across Canada who uses our consent language on their housing application forms.

Before you let protect yourself and your company from becoming open to lawsuits. Include an approved, legally compliant consent statement with each tenancy application.

Email this news item to your colleagues so they too can obtain copies of this publication.Your feedback and future topics of interest, or inquiries on privacy issues are important to us. Please let us know.

Sincerely,

John Dobrowolski. President & CEO
Rent Check Credit Bureau
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email: privacy@rentcheckcorp.com
voice: 1-800-661-7312 / 416-365-7060 ext.222