Another agent has been fined by a court for failing to register under the Data Protection Act after a crackdown on the industry was announced last year. We carried this story yesterday in EAT, but felt we should repeat it today as it would appear that letting agents in particular may be inadvertently flouting the law.
In only the third prosecution, John Merfyn Pugh of Merfyn Pugh Estate Agents pleaded guilty at Caernarfon magistrates’ court to the offence of failing to notify the Information Commissioner’s Office that his business processes personal data.
Like the two earlier cases, he escaped the maximum sentence of a £5,000 fine. Instead, he was given a conditional discharge of six months and ordered to pay £614 towards prosecution costs.
The magistrates told him they were sorry to see him in court and that had he dealt with it earlier it would only have cost him £35. The court took into account the fact that Mr Pugh had complied with the law by the time the court heard his case.
Anne Jones, Assistant Commissioner for Wales, said: “Registering as a data controller is a basic legal requirement of the Data Protection Act.
“The fee for most businesses is £35 a year. Merfyn Pugh Estate Agents’ failure to register – even after being prompted to do so by the ICO – has cost them much more today. The message behind today’s prosecution is clear: ignore warnings and you too could end up in court.”
In March, a prosecution was brought against another Welsh agent, John Newbound, of Newbank Estate and Letting Agents.
Mr Newbound, whose firm has two offices in Blaenau Gwent, was ordered to pay a £100 fine, £250 towards prosecution costs and a £15 victims’ surcharge by Cwmbran magistrates.
The first agent to be fined under the ICO’s crackdown was Merseyside firm PDQ Property Sales on March 11, which received a fine of £250 and was ordered to pay £265 in court costs, plus a £15 victims’ surcharge.
All businesses that handle personal data – and effectively, that is every estate agent and letting agent that keeps records – must by law register with the ICO.
It announced a targeted crackdown on agents last year because compliance was so low, but it is clear that a number of agents have still not registered.
In June, the ICO announced that 4,336 estate agents and 1,764 letting agents had registered, an uplift in numbers of 719 and 402 respectively since the campaign launched a year earlier.
Agents may only have to register once, regardless of how many branches they have. However, if their offices form a separate legal entity, they would have to register more than once.
To check whether you have registered, use this link (dawn readers will have to paste it into their browers, as the link will probably not show up as live until around 9am).
http://www.ico.gov.uk/ESDWebPages/search.asp
Comments
@David
Its YOUR job to know exactly what you need to do and know. This is what they call being professional. You are obviously not one of those so I should pack it in if I were you and go stack shelves in Tesco.
Who's job is it to make agents aware of these bodies we must be registered with? Whoever it is should be sacked... And they say agents charge fees for nothing.....This is a good example of money for old rope....