AI in property management: tenants, applicants and their data.
Most of the data a property manager handles is not particularly sensitive under Swiss law, so AI can take over much of the tenant correspondence. Applications need the most care, and the federal data protection commissioner has published rules for them.
Where AI helps a property manager
- Sorting incoming tenant mail and damage reports by property and urgency, and passing them to the right person
- Drafting replies to tenant questions from the lease, the house rules and past answers
- Drafting standard letters, such as notices about works, reminders and handover appointments
- Answering staff questions from the company's own templates and procedures
- Summarising owner reports and meeting minutes
Which tenant data is sensitive
The real estate association SVIT wrote in its 2022 data protection recommendation that the great majority of data in the industry is not particularly sensitive under the Data Protection Act. It names the debt enforcement extract in tenant checks as the exception. The law's list itself contains, among others, health, religion and the intimate sphere, data on administrative and criminal proceedings and on social assistance.
These data turn up in property management too: a medical certificate attached to a termination, a note on social services paying the rent, a damage report that names an illness. Send such mail to a person.
What applicants may be asked
The Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner's fact sheet on rental applications, updated in July 2025, sets the limits. Collecting data on applicants is allowed in principle if the data help to choose a suitable tenant by objective criteria.
- Allowed: identity and contact details, Swiss or foreign citizenship with the type of residence permit and its expiry, income, and a copy of the debt enforcement extract
- Not allowed in principle: civil status, religion and nationality
- Only from the chosen applicant: copies of the ID and of payslips
- After the lease is signed: the forms and attachments of the other applicants are destroyed
What this means for an AI tool
An AI tool may sort applications by the criteria the form allows, and a person decides. Three points from the fact sheet decide how it is set up. The data serve the selection for this one property, so a tool may not keep them for other properties or a waiting list without the applicant's consent. Only the people who choose the tenant may see them. And when the property is let, the other applicants' data have to be deleted, in the tool as well.
For the AI provider itself the same rule applies as for any service provider: under Article 9 of the Data Protection Act it may process the data only as you could yourself, under a contract, and it has to keep them secure.
How to start
- Pick one inbox, such as tenant questions for one portfolio, and let AI draft the replies for a month
- Keep a person on every reply that goes out until the error rate is known
- Choose a provider on business terms with a processing contract and no training on your data
- Set up applications separately, with access for the letting team only and deletion after letting
- Write the rule on one page, so everyone knows what may go where
Questions
May AI choose our tenants?
It may sort applications by the objective criteria the FDPIC allows, such as income and the debt enforcement extract. A person makes the decision. Questions on civil status, religion and nationality stay off the form, and the AI does not get them either.
Is a debt enforcement extract particularly sensitive data?
It is not on the law's list. The FDPIC allows asking all applicants for a copy. SVIT still names it as the one exception in tenant checks where sensitive data play a role. Handle it with care.
Can AI answer tenants directly?
For questions the lease or the house rules answer, yes, once a person has checked its replies for a while. Mail about health, social services or a dispute goes to a person.