| The Freshman |
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| Although property not listed, prospective purchasers nonetheless appear |
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Mrs Poon is the owner of a flat in Happy Valley. For the past two years the flat had been let to an expatriate working in a bank.
One day, someone rang the door bell of the flat. The tenant opened the door and saw three people, one of whom claiming that he was Mrs Poon's estate agent and the purpose of the visit was to show the flat to prospective purchasers in accordance with Mrs Poon's instruction. Suspecting nothing, the tenant let them in, and the agent took the two prospective purchasers to examine the flat inside out for over twenty minutes.
After the three were gone, the tenant thought about the incident and became suspicious. So he called Mrs Poon and asked her if she was planning to sell the flat. Mrs Poon was baffled as she had no intention of selling the flat, and did not list it with any agent. However, as the agent only mentioned his name and did not leave a name card or any means of making contact, Mrs Poon had no means of finding out what happened. Even if she wanted to lodge a complaint, she would not know whom to complain against.
The above case brings out a couple of questions. First, under common law, a tenant enjoys the exclusive right of occupying the rented flat. Unless otherwise stated in the lease, even the owner cannot interfere with the tenant's right or enter the flat without the tenant's permission. Further, it was unwise of the tenant to have let the agent in without first verifying his identity, as the consequences could have been serious.
The estate agent in the above case had apparently misled the prospective purchasers and caused them to waste their time because he did not have any instruction from the owner. Moreover, since the owner had never listed the flat, the agent should not have in his possession the owner's personal data such as telephone number. If, at a later stage, this agent wanted to contact the owner to persuade her to list the flat, he might obtain through illegal means the personal data of the owner, thereby violating the law regarding personal data.
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