Within the real estate industry there are countless documents, papers, and confidential information created, collected, stored, and processed on a daily basis. Buying and selling property always involves a lot of paperwork, including tax documents, bank statements and many more. You have a responsibility as a company or agent working in this industry to protect the sensitive data of your clients, both those selling and buying properties, maintaining trust in a market that is inherently competitive.
Why Paper Shredding is Important in The Real Estate Industry
The paper shredding process is vital in the real estate industry. It provides a safeguard against fraud and identity theft in a comprehensive manner, destroying personal and sensitive information that could be present in a whole host of documents. Data breaches occur in every industry where confidential information is collected, managed, stored, and processed. In real estate, there are documents containing personal information, banking records and other financial details.
For any company to be successful in real estate there must be a certain level of trust between the company and its clients. As you’ll be collecting and storing personal and financial information, how you prepare your documents for shredding is crucial to maintaining transparency, confidentiality, and accountability. It is only with this approach that you can maintain high standards and build a trustworthy brand that customers can rely on to look after their information and data. With a proper shredding process, documents are destroyed in an effective way, preventing unauthorised access to the information and safeguarding your real estate company and your clients.
The Benefits of Shredding Services
Professional document shredding services provide a range of benefits to a real estate company. This includes the following:
Convenience
Professional shredding services provide the most convenient and effective way to dispose of large volumes of confidential documents, which can save a lot of time and resources in-house.
Environmental advantages
We recycle 100% of the paper that we collect and professionally destroy. This has a big impact on our clients and the ability to improve their own sustainability efforts.
Comply with regulations
GDPR is an important part of the real estate world, as it relates to the collection and processing of information that may contain sensitive and personal information. There are many document types within real estate that fall under these regulations, and with a professional shredding service such as ours, you are covered legally, avoiding potential fines and brand reputational damage.
Increase efficiency
Paper documents can take up a lot of space in an office or storage unit. Regular, confidential paper shredding frees up space to be used in more effective ways, whilst also eliminating time spent by staff sorting and storing old documents.
Consider other data
It isn’t solely paper documents that contain sensitive personal data in the modern age. Secure onsite IT destruction ensures that hard drives, CDs, and other types of digital media that contain personal information can be destroyed in a safe, methodical, and legal manner.
Legal Requirements for Document Disposal in Real Estate (Ireland)
Every business that creates paper and processes information of a personal or sensitive nature must comply with EU GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). Personal data is any information that can either directly or indirectly identify a person. Within real estate, this can include:
- Property transactions
- Property sales and rentals
- Recruitment of real estate agents
Information could include:
- Names
- Addresses
- Telephone numbers
- Email addresses
- Credit history of an applicant
- Income
- Borrowing capacity
- Health data
- Family situation and makeup
- Location and addresses of properties viewed
By complying with GDPR, your company demonstrates a clear commitment to customers that you will protect their personal data at all times.
Implementing Proper Document Disposal Procedures in Real Estate Agencies
There are a few simple steps that real estate agencies can implement to help create an efficient and secure document disposal procedure.
Create a document retention schedule
It is important to look at the different types of documents and how long each type should be retained. Documents containing sensitive information, such as tax documents, bank statements and personal information should only be stored for as long as they are legally required.
Secure document storage
For those documents that do need to be stored, consider secure storage locations where there is limited access to only authorised staff members.
Regular professional shredding
To help prevent the build-up of unnecessary paper and documents, and to adhere to GDPR regulations, a schedule of regular paper shredding from a professional shredding service such as ours, reduces the risks of sensitive data being breached and creates a working environment that is free of clutter and mess.
Recycling as standard
Building sustainable practice in all areas of a real estate agency is desirable and by utilising our professional shredding service that recycles 100% of paper, you can build a greener future and sustainable ethos for your business.
Our on and off site services are ISO9001 accredited, incorporating the EN15713 shredding standard. For confidential shredding services you can rely on, our real estate document shredding service is the perfect way for you to cut business costs, improve data security, and have peace of mind that all documentation related to the daily processes and customer information within your industry is disposed of in a secure and legal way.
