Can a landlord 'blacklist' a former tenant?

Tenant ‘blacklists’ lack transparency and are likely to contain information that’s inaccurate or incomplete because there are many risks to the landlord of disclosing personal information, especially without the consent of the individual or individuals in question.

Blacklisting is a practice where landlords keep and share details of tenants usually with some prejudicial information as a warning to other landlords not to rent to them.

The main purpose landlords rely on when collecting personal information is to choose a prospective tenant. The information should not be used for another purpose such as disclosing information about the tenant to other landlords.

If a landlord submits information to such lists, you may be in breach of privacy principles 8 (accuracy) and 11 (disclosure). If a landlord obtains information about tenants from ‘blacklists’ they may be in breach of principle 2 (collection directly from the individual), and if they use information from ‘blacklists’ without verifying its accuracy, they may be in breach of principle 8. Managing such a list also risks breaching several privacy principles, and tenants can ask for landlords to provide that information to them

If information about a tenant is disclosed and the individual suffers harm as a result of that disclosure because they did not consent to it, or the information was inaccurate, disputed or wrong, they can make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner.

However, if the information is publicly available, a landlord could share or disclose information about a tenant, as long as doing so isn't unfair. For instance, a Tenancy Tribunal decision which is available on the Ministry of Justice website can be shared with other landlords. But it’s important to bear in mind that timeliness and relevance need to be considered in sharing this information, for example, should a Tribunal decision from five or 10 years ago have a bearing on whether a person would make a good tenant today?

Updated November 2025