I wanted to ask about the legality of landlords requesting details of visitors as I cannot find anything in my google searches (probably because no one is as bonkers as our LLs). For context, we live in a cottage that is part of a series of cottages on a large country manor. There is a couple hundred acres of agricultural land and a public, council maintained road that cuts through the middle of it all. Our LLs live in the main house, we privately rent our house and then there are 3 other cottages that are currently occupied by staff and their partners (tied accommodation).
In the past month, the LLs (and employers, in this context) have started to demand the car make, model and reg number of any visitors that staff have over. These cars aren’t on private land. There are no driveways anyway. We all live in individual detached houses that front onto the public road. Our LLs are just absolutely bonkers (and wealthy beyond belief, in the hundreds of millions of £ due to inheritance, so they don’t work and in between holidays, frankly I think they just get really bored) and they like to monitor who goes up and down the road on their cctv.
The road does become a dirt track about a 1/2 mile past their house before opening out onto a paved B road, so realistically we don’t get a lot of through traffic. Most people go to the end and then realise the lane becomes a track and they turn around as it’s not really passable unless you have a 4x4. So we get at least a fair amount of cars than come up the lane and then turn around and come back. I think it makes LLs nervous that people are like casing the joint, but really they are just blindly following their sat navs.
Anyway, LLs want presumably to track all cars going past their house on this road, they’ve started to request that all their staff who live in cottages along this road report the cars of any visitors in advance so they can keep a log. They currently haven’t asked us (the only private tenants), I suspect because it’s less clear from a legal standpoint that they can. The 3 staff and their families seem to vary from complying to completely ignoring the request (which has resulted in being reprimanded in an employment context for one of them). Frankly there is nothing exciting for them to report anyway. They’re middle aged to late 60s couples who have the usual Amazon deliveries and occasional family over for Sunday lunch. But it’s more the principle of it, I think.
My question is, is this legal in the context of tied accommodation? And as I suspect we may be their next attempt, is it legal in the context of a privately rented home, particularly one that’s occupied by one set of tenants (not an HMO or lodger arrangement)? Seeing how much hassle our neighbours are getting wants me to at least be prepared if we end up in their batsh!&t sights next.