Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

Re: Apartment complex lost copies of personal information

I used to own a property management company, and I can tell you from experience that it is much less likely (though not impossible) that the documents were truly lost or misfiled than stolen. Though I worked very hard to make this situation better in my own company, people who work in property management are notoriously poor record keepers. That, however, doesn't solve the problem. Frankly, there really isn't a question in what you posted except do you have any legal recourse. The answer is probably no until (sorry) such time as you actually are the victim of identity theft. Until then, you really have no damages to complain of. I do tend to agree with you that I would not be tremendously comfortable re-submitting the information again, and would probably not want to rent from someone who is so poor at keeping records. What happens when they lose track of your rent check? As for what to do - you will have to make a more personal-level decision than a legal one. If and when you become the victim of identity theft, you probably have a good lawsuit against them, though you may want to get them to admit in writing now to having lost the first set of documents. Finally, you will want to contact the three big credit reporting bureaus - notify them that your personal information may have been compromised, and that you would like a fraud alert placed on your account. I believe (and again, this is really a non-law issue) it will require your authorization for anyone to run your credit, or open a new account.

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