Data protection breech?

[sk8agrrl]

An estate agent passed my details onto the seller of a house who then told the local council tax office I lived there. The problem is I was not the buyer of the house, merely a local contact name and number and I have never lived at the address in question.

 

I had a lot of running backwards and forwards having to prove this to the council in question and eventually the council tax office admitted they had been passed my details by the seller, which in normal circumstances would be perfectly acceptable.

 

The current tenant of the house is now having benefits issues as the council tax benefit office have my name as living at the property (do these departments not speak to each other?) so yet again I'm spending precious time and money having to prove to them I'm not living there, despite their colleagues having accepted this recently.

 

I'm curious to know whether there was a data protection breech by the estate agent for handing over my name to the seller as living at the property when I was not the buyer of the property and have never actually lived there.

 

(apologies for the long winded route to the question)