Privacy Policy
The Cohen Farquharson website
PRIVACY POLICY
The Trustee for Prime Eastern Realty Trust Pty Limited (ACN 644 618 226) trading as Cohen Farquharson
This Privacy Policy describes how and when we, THE TRUSTEE FOR PRIME EASTERN REALTY TRUST PTY LIMITED (ACN 644 618 226) trading as COHEN FARQUHARSON (“Cohen Farquharson”, “we”, “us” or “our”), collect, hold, use, transfer, disclose and otherwise process personal information. Cohen Farquharson is a property management and leasing business operating in New South Wales and is licensed and regulated under the Property and Stock Agents Act 2002 (NSW). We also have obligations in relation to tenant and rental applicant information under the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW).
This Privacy Policy applies to Personal Information that we collect, such as through our website, rental applications, open home and inspection registers, online forms, email, telephone calls and from third parties.
What is Personal Information?
When used in this Privacy Policy, the term “Personal Information” has the meaning given to it in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Act). This may include your name, address, telephone number, email address and profession or occupation. If the information we collect personally identifies you, or you are reasonably identifiable from it, the information will be considered Personal Information.
What type of Personal Information does Cohen Farquharson collect and hold about me?
If you contact us via our website or make an enquiry with us via another method, we may collect your contact details, including your name, address, telephone number and email address.
If you apply to rent a property that we manage, or become a tenant of such a property, we may additionally collect any of the following Personal Information about you:
• identity information, such as your name, date of birth and identity documents;
• information about your ability to pay rent, such as your employment details and income;
• information about your suitability as a tenant, such as your rental history and the details of your referees, previous landlords or managing agents;
• details of the people who will occupy the property with you;
• your bank account or payment details for the payment of rent and other amounts;
• records relating to your tenancy, including your tenancy agreement, rental bond details, rent payment and ledger records, condition reports (which may include photographs of the property), inspection records, repair and maintenance requests, correspondence, and records of any breaches, disputes or proceedings before the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT); and
• emergency contact details you provide to us.
When you apply for a rental property, we only collect the types of information that landlords and agents are permitted to request from rental applicants under the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW) and its regulations, and we will not require you to provide information that those laws prohibit us from collecting.
If you engage us to manage or lease your property as a landlord, we may collect Personal Information including your name and contact details, details of the property and your ownership of it, your bank account details for the disbursement of rent, and details relevant to the management of the property such as mortgage, insurance, strata and tax-related information.
If you are a tradesperson or supplier engaged in connection with a property we manage, we may collect your contact details, payment details, and licence and insurance details.
How does Cohen Farquharson collect Personal Information about me?
Cohen Farquharson collects your Personal Information directly from you unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so. We may collect Personal Information from you in various ways, including when you complete a rental application (including through an online application platform), when you register to attend or attend a property inspection, when you write to or email us, when you access and use our website, and during conversations between you and our representatives.
Cohen Farquharson may collect information about you from the following third party sources:
• referees nominated by you in a rental application, such as employers and previous landlords or managing agents;
• residential tenancy databases (such as Equifax's National Tenancy Database), where permitted by law and in accordance with the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW);
• various databases in the public domain, such as NSW Land Registry Services or other property databases; and
• referrals and recommendations from professional contacts or existing clients of Cohen Farquharson.
What happens if we can’t collect your Personal Information?
If you do not provide us with the Personal Information described above, some or all of the following may happen:
• we may not be able to assess your rental application or offer you a tenancy;
• we may not be able to provide our property management or leasing services to you, either to the same standard or at all;
• we may not be able to provide you with information about services or properties that you may want, including information about new properties that are available for rent; or
• we may be unable to tailor the content of our website to your preferences and your experience of our website may not be as enjoyable or useful.
How does Cohen Farquharson use your Personal Information?
Any Personal Information about you that Cohen Farquharson collects will only be used by Cohen Farquharson for the purposes of:
• assessing rental applications, including verifying the information provided and contacting referees;
• establishing and managing tenancies, including preparing tenancy agreements, collecting rent, maintaining rent ledgers, lodging and claiming rental bonds with NSW Fair Trading (including through Rental Bonds Online), conducting inspections, preparing condition reports, arranging repairs and maintenance, and managing renewals and the end of tenancies;
• providing leasing and property management services to landlords, including marketing properties for lease, reporting to landlords and disbursing rental income;
• dealing with your queries, complaints or customer service issues promptly;
• complying with our obligations under the Property and Stock Agents Act 2002 (NSW), the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW) and other applicable laws, including trust accounting, record-keeping and audit requirements;
• providing you with access to protected areas of our website, assessing the performance of our website and improving the operation of our website;
• updating Cohen Farquharson’s records and keeping your contact details up to date;
• our internal administrative, marketing, planning, product development and research requirements, to help us efficiently and effectively deliver and improve our services;
• growing our business and conducting our business processing functions, including sharing Personal Information within the Cohen Group (which includes Cohen Farquharson, Cohen Handler Pty Ltd, Cohen Handler QLD Investments Pty. Limited, Costi Cohen Pty Ltd and Costi Cohen Holdings Pty Ltd), and their personnel, contractors or service providers;
• keeping you up to date with services and properties we think would be of particular interest to you; and
• complying with any legal, contractual or statutory obligations.
Cohen Farquharson may also use or disclose the information it collects for any other purpose specified to you at the time of collection. We will seek your consent if Cohen Farquharson wishes to use or disclose your Personal Information in any ways other than those described above.
How long do we keep rental application and tenancy information?
We retain Personal Information collected in connection with rental applications and tenancies only for as long as it is needed for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy or as required by law. In particular, where the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW) and its regulations prescribe periods within which information collected from rental applicants and tenants must be destroyed — including information relating to unsuccessful applicants — we will destroy or de-identify that information in accordance with those requirements, subject to any other legal obligation to retain it.
What about residential tenancy databases?
As part of assessing a rental application, we may (where permitted by law) check whether you are listed on a residential tenancy database. If we do, we will notify you of the databases we use and, if we find personal information about you on a database, we will disclose that to you in accordance with the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW).
We will only list a person on a residential tenancy database where the law permits us to do so — generally only where the person was a named tenant, the tenancy has ended, and the person owes an amount exceeding the rental bond or NCAT has made a termination order because of a breach by the person. Before making a listing, we will give the person a copy of the proposed listing and a reasonable opportunity to review it and make objections. We will also take steps to ensure that any listing we make is accurate, complete and up to date, and we will amend or remove listings as required by law.
What about direct marketing?
We may send you direct marketing communications and information about our services that we consider may be of interest to you. These may include:
• offering to provide you with services provided by Cohen Farquharson, such as property management and leasing services;
• information about properties available for rent that may be of interest to you; or
• sending you news and other information about Cohen Farquharson’s activities which we believe may be of interest to you.
These communications may be sent in various forms, including mail, SMS and email, in accordance with applicable marketing laws, such as the Spam Act 2003 (Cth). If you indicate a preference for a method of communication, we will endeavour to use that method whenever practical to do so.
You may at any time request not to receive direct marketing from Cohen Farquharson by contacting us (see the details below) or by using the opt-out facilities provided in the marketing communications, and we will then ensure that your name is removed from our mailing list.
The Cohen Farquharson website
Cohen Farquharson’s privacy policy also applies to our website at https://www.cohenfarquharson.com.au/. When you access our website, we may send a “cookie” (which is a small summary file containing a unique ID number) to your computer. This enables us to recognise your computer and greet you each time you visit our website without bothering you with a request to register. It also enables us to keep track of services and properties you view so that, if you consent, we can send you news about them. We also use cookies to measure traffic patterns, to determine which areas of our website have been visited and to measure transaction patterns in the aggregate. We use this to research our users’ habits so that we can improve our online services and create a better online experience for you. Our cookies do not collect Personal Information, although they do identify your browser. If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set your browser so that your computer does not accept them. We may log IP addresses (that is, the electronic addresses of computers connected to the internet) to analyse trends, administer the website, monitor the amount of time you spend on our website, paths navigated on our website, track users’ movements, and gather broad demographic information.
Our website may contain links to other websites operated by third parties, including online rental application platforms and property listing portals. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third party website and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of any third party website. Our linking to those websites does not mean that we endorse or recommend them. Third party websites are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices. You may interact with social media platforms via social media widgets and tools linking to our social media accounts that may be installed on our website. These widgets and tools may collect your IP address and other personal information. Your interactions with such widgets and tools, and any single sign-on services, are governed by the privacy policies of the relevant social media operators and single sign-on service providers – please read them so that you are aware of how they process your personal information.
Can I be anonymous when I deal with Cohen Farquharson?
To some extent you can preserve your anonymity when you deal with Cohen Farquharson. You can browse our website without providing any Personal Information and you can access our rental advertising in various publications and on listing portals without identifying yourself. However, if you wish to inspect a property we may ask you to register your details for security and follow-up purposes, and if you apply for a tenancy, enter into a tenancy agreement or engage us (or any other entity in the Cohen Group) to manage or lease your property, we will need to identify you in order to provide our services and to comply with our legal obligations.
What happens if I want to access or correct the Personal Information held about me?
You may request access to your Personal Information held by Cohen Farquharson at any time by contacting us. We will respond to your request for access within 14 days and endeavour to provide the requested information within 30 days.
Cohen Farquharson may charge you a reasonable fee to cover its administrative and other reasonable costs in providing the information to you, except where a law (including the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW)) requires the information to be provided without charge. Cohen Farquharson will not charge for simply making the request and will not charge for making any corrections to your Personal Information.
There may be instances where we cannot grant you access to the Personal Information about you that we hold. If for any reason Cohen Farquharson does not allow you to access your Personal Information, Cohen Farquharson will provide you with reasons in writing for its decision.
If you believe that Personal Information that Cohen Farquharson holds about you is incorrect, incomplete, inaccurate or misleading, then you may request that we update, modify or correct your Personal Information by contacting our Privacy Officer using the details set out below.
Who does Cohen Farquharson disclose my Personal Information to?
We may disclose your Personal Information:
• if you are a rental applicant or tenant — to the landlord (or other authorised representatives) of the property you have applied for or are renting, where it is relevant to your application or tenancy;
• if you are a landlord — to tenants and prospective tenants of your property, to the extent required by law or reasonably necessary for the leasing and management of the property;
• to tradespeople, contractors and suppliers engaged to carry out repairs, maintenance or other work at a property, to the extent necessary for them to perform that work;
• to strata managers, owners corporations and building managers in connection with properties we manage;
• to insurers and their representatives in connection with insurance for a property, including landlord insurance claims;
• to residential tenancy database operators (such as Equifax's National Tenancy Database), but only as permitted by the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW) and as described in this Privacy Policy;
• to utility connection and other moving-related service providers, with your consent;
• to advertising agencies, signwriters, photographers and listing portals engaged in connection with the marketing of properties for lease;
• to other members of the Cohen Group and their personnel, contractors or service providers, for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy;
• to our accountants, lawyers, auditors and other advisors where we engage them to assist us with any matter;
• to our service providers, including providers of property management software, online rental application platforms, rental payment services and information technology services, for the purpose of them providing services to us;
• to a third party such as financial institutions, with your consent and for an authorised purpose that relates to the services we are providing to you;
• to potential acquirers, joint venture partners, business partners and other similar third parties in connection with a potential or actual merger, corporate restructure or acquisition of our business; and
• where the disclosure is required or authorised by law, such as to government authorities and regulatory bodies (including NSW Fair Trading in connection with rental bonds and our obligations as a licensed agent, and NSW Land Registry Services), NCAT, law enforcement or in court or tribunal proceedings.
Cohen Farquharson does not sell your Personal Information to other organisations. We may however use the information about you to assist us with internal statistical, marketing and research purposes.
We store Personal Information in Australia and we do not currently disclose Personal Information to overseas recipients. If this changes, we will only disclose your Personal Information overseas in accordance with the Privacy Act, including by taking reasonable steps to ensure that any overseas recipient handles your Personal Information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles.
How does Cohen Farquharson keep my Personal Information secure?
Cohen Farquharson will take reasonable steps to ensure Personal Information Cohen Farquharson collects, uses or discloses is stored in a secure environment that is accessed only by persons authorised by Cohen Farquharson, to prevent interference, misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We recognise that rental applications and tenancy records can include sensitive identity and financial documents, and we take particular care with the storage, handling and destruction of that information.
Cohen Farquharson may be required to retain Personal Information in accordance with our data retention obligations, including record-keeping requirements under the Property and Stock Agents Act 2002 (NSW). If Personal Information is no longer needed for any purpose, and we are not required by law to retain it, Cohen Farquharson will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify the Personal Information, including within any timeframes prescribed under the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW).
Cohen Farquharson endeavours to provide a secure environment and use reliable systems, but you should be aware that there are inherent risks associated with the electronic storage and transmission of information (particularly via the Internet) which cannot be guaranteed to be 100% secure.
Who do I contact for further information?
Cohen Farquharson’s Privacy Officer can assist you with any enquiries you have about the information that we hold about you. They can be contacted on (02) 9327 2700 from 9.00am to 5.00pm (Sydney time), Monday to Friday excluding public holidays.
You can also contact our Privacy Officer at:
Cohen Farquharson
Level 1, Suite 4 / 53 Cross Street, Double Bay NSW 2028
PO Box 1517 Double Bay NSW 1360
Phone (02) 9327 2700
What if I have a complaint or concern?
If you have a complaint or concern you can contact the Cohen Farquharson Privacy Officer on (02) 9327 2700 or write to the Privacy Officer at the address above.
What if you are unable to resolve my complaint or concern?
If we are unable to resolve your complaint, or you are unhappy with the outcome, you may refer your complaint to the Australian Information Commissioner. The Australian Information Commissioner can be contacted at the below details:
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218
Sydney NSW 1042
Phone: 1300 363 992
E-mail: [email protected]
TTY: 133 677 then ask for 1300 363 992
If your complaint relates to a listing (or proposed listing) on a residential tenancy database, you may also be able to apply to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal, or contact NSW Fair Trading, in relation to that listing.
How does this policy change over time?
Cohen Farquharson may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any updated versions of this Privacy Policy will be posted on our website and will be effective from the date of posting.
This privacy policy was last updated on 8 September 2026.
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