How Can I Check Out A Potential Tenant?

The initial step is to acquire suitable references, your insurance provider will certainly require these if you propose to secure cover for legal expenses and a rent guarantee.

There can be risks associated with letting property which includes habitual fraudsters, identity theft, unreliable tenants along with other possible issues. Growth in scams means that any information a potential tenant provides should not be taken at face value and should always be investigated by experts in referencing.

Obtaining employer references for income validation and past landlord references is merely the first stage in the process of safe-guarding a successful tenancy. The next is verification by way of an expert and unbiased third party assessment of the suitability of a person to rent property. To be effective, this is carried out utilizing the most advanced technology and analytical techniques to obtain and match data from the widest possible sources of records available. Included in this are county court and bankruptcy information, identification checks and validation of bank sort codes - all of which can be carried out on-line.It is vital that the follwing are checked out by your provider:

Authentication: tenant screening should contain details to ensure that the tenant is who they say they are and that they haven’t either stolen an identity or developed one.

Linked addresses: any search for issues such as CCJs should not just be restricted to checking current addresses. Data searches should look for detrimental information at undisclosed and linked addresses, particularly as failure to disclose an address could well signify that the tenant has something they wish to hide.

Employer’s references: it is necessary to establish whether the tenant is employed with sufficient income to meet rental obligations – but it is equally important to be sure of the source of that information. Employers using personal email addresses, such as Hotmail, or mobile telephone numbers should only be accepted if they have been verified and authenticated with a full audit trail to support. In fact, any employer’s reference should be checked out to make sure that it is authentic.

Tenant history: previous landlord references should include the total history of the tenancy. Even if the tenancy ended with the rent paid up, had there been arrears or any other relevant problems, such as damage to property or complaints from neighbours? A standard three year address history should be obtained and a reference taken from the most recent landlord to ensure that tenants who have, for example, been living with parents for the last year have nothing to hide.

Guarantors: ensure that the verification extends to any guarantor involved. In fact, a guarantor should be as carefully referenced as the tenant themselves – after all, they will be the party that needs to be pursued if the tenant defaults. For this reason, guarantors based overseas should be avoided. If problems arise they will be harder to trace and the laws of the country in which they reside may make it hard or impossible to pursue them or to obtain a recovery.