Suspected black-renting – took extreme measures • Followed the man and spoke to neighbours
A tenant in Stockholm loses his contract after suspicions of subletting his apartment without permission, reports Hem och Hyra. The man was registered in a three-room apartment of 116 square meters in central Stockholm – but lived in a villa in Umeå, according to the landlord.
Shadowed the tenant
The first suspicions arose when a relative of the tenant accidentally registered at the neighbor’s address, which led to more and more mail beginning to end up there. When the neighbor confronted the relative, he stated that he lived in the man’s apartment with his wife and children, the newspaper reports.
The landlord then hired an elderly person from Umeå as a private detective to secretly shadow the tenant. The latter saw him, among other things, outside his villa in Umeå on several occasions and talked to several neighbors near the villa.
In addition, the landlord reviewed recordings from surveillance cameras in the Stockholm apartment, where the man was only seen a few times despite going through material from several months ago.
The tenant lost the contract
The case was later taken up in the tenancy board, where it emerged during a hearing that the man’s relatives were registered in the apartment.
The tenant himself did not appear at the hearing, and although the private detective’s information could not be fully verified, the board judged that the apartment had been illegally sublet with the help of the public records and the surveillance footage, which led to the man losing the contract.
Cannot reject evidence
A representative of the Privacy Protection Authority, with whom Hem och Hyra has spoken, says that monitoring of homes may only take place in exceptional cases, and that material from cameras may not be used for purposes other than preventing crime. Among other things, with regard to the rights of the data subjects through the data protection regulation GDPR, the newspaper writes.
However, the Rent Board tells the newspaper that they cannot reject evidence, even if it was collected in a questionable way.
– In the rental board, you have the right to present any evidence. The Rent Board cannot reject evidence even if the material would have come about in a way that can be questioned, says Vanja Lycke, rent advisor at the Rent Board in Stockholm to the newspaper.