Privacy: It's a Myth

By Richard Marmor
AZSA Legal and Legislative Committee Chair

In the 2003 film “Love Actually,” a love-smitten Hugh Grant goes looking for Natalie, played by Martine McCutcheon, the girl of his dreams. All he knows is that she lives “on Harris Street . . . at the dodgy end.” Arriving at what he calls “the longest street in the world,” he begins knocking on doors trying to find out which house is hers. One neighbor eventually is able to direct him to her.

Now I will wager that those of you who have seen this delightful comedy not only never questioned that strategy, you were undoubtedly rooting for him, hoping that someone would be able to help him find her.

Apart from the fact that it would have ruined the movie, should Natalie have had an expectation that her neighbors had some kind of duty to keep her whereabouts secret? I hardly think so.

Suppose Natalie had lived in an apartment complex, and Hugh Grant had simply asked the apartment manager which flat was hers. Some of you are now hedging, questioning whether the manager could reveal that information. Why? What’s different?

Let’s change the facts once more. In a gesture intended to demonstrate his love, Hugh Grant sets out to pay Natalie’s delinquent storage bill so her possessions don’t get sold at auction. He only knows that she stores her things at a facility “on Harris Street . . . at the dodgy end.” Stopping by each facility on the street, our love-sick hero asks manager after manger whether Natalie is a tenant there. Should they tell him?

I will wager this time that the managers reading this are for the most part answering, “Yes . . . provided he presents a search warrant.” Indeed, without question, the presence of a search warrant would cut immediately through this dilemma. But what if he doesn’t have such a court order?

We already see from the examples above that answering or not is not a moral issue. Perhaps there’s something in the law? You have copies of the self-storage statutes – you should; we give them to you. (If you don’t, download them from the members’ section of the AZSA website.) You should have read them and familiarized yourself with them. I’ll save you the looking; there’s nothing in them about privacy.

The only remaining arbiter of your relationship to your tenants is the lease. It is the bible of that relationship. I’ll make one final wager: I’ll bet not one of your leases has any provision in it about privacy. The AZSA standardized lease doesn’t.

Of course the managers can answer, with or without a court order. The records of their operations are their property. They can do with them pretty much whatever they want, and that includes revealing the names of their tenants.

Where this belief arose, that revealing the identity of our tenants is forbidden, is beyond me. It’s a myth.

[This article deals with a law related subject at a general level and is not intended for you to rely on. You should consult a lawyer before making a final decision in a situation involving any legal issues.]

Richard Marmor, Esq. is a self-storage consultant, facility owner and former facility operator in the Phoenix area. He is also the founding President and current member of the Board of Directors of the Arizona Self-Storage Association, serving as Chair of the Legal and Legislative Committee.

Source: Behind Closed Doors, AZSA Newsletter Archives