I have decided not to use this platform anymore. So far I have had someone with a CCJ who presented themself as a couple then single; a guy who has 51 dissolved ltd companies and finally a woman who actually came round pretending to be interested and she was Rent to Rent. They present as a couple looking to rent then wasted my time getting me to show my property and started pitching 5 years rent contract to me for whoever they could get in including using Booking.com. I am so angry i can hardly type.
OpenRent is designed for private landlords and tenants. We have systems in place to detect where people might be trying to use our platform to solicit other services, such as Rent to Rent schemes, but sometimes these enquiries slip through. You can use the “Report Spam” button in the messaging thread to flag these for review and help us identify these better.
I’ve marked the enquiry you’re referring to as spam so this won’t show up in your enquiries and they won’t be able to message anyone else on OpenRent.
We offer lots of guidance on how you can attract more tenants to your listing - you can check this on the “Listing Performance Repost” from your listing page. We also have a blog post focused on this:
Your feedback is appreciated - best of luck with the rest of your tenant search!
You are self- managing. You will receive all sorts of enquiries & your job is the screen them. If you don’t want to do this, pay an agent to do it for you.
I did screen these people. That is why they didn’t get to rent my property.
I am talking more about the quality of the people who seem to be attracted to this platform these days. I have rented out successfully with OR three times before in the past. Nowadays it just seems to be full of chancers.
Sorry to hear your problems. More people are homeless than before. With cost of living crisis more potential tenants will also be struggling. Inevitably there will also be some poor tenants. Well done for screening out these ones as unsuitable for your property. But remember even folk with a ccj or past finance issues will need a place to live and they won’t always be upfront about such things understandably. Sadly some people lie or are dishonest by omission. We notice them and get angry rightly but the flipside is the majority of tenants (and landlords) who behave honestly.
Hindsight is a terrible thing and sorry if v obvious but a couple of things to add to your screening questions might be
“Please provide the full names of all individuals whyou propose will live at the property, their occupations and how long you plan to rent the property”
“Are they any things which will be revealed by credit, reference or employment checks which I should know about (eg CCJs, criminal records, bankruptcies)”
“Please confirm you are not a rent company and are applying for a tenancy for your own personal use and will not sublet as this would be a breach resulting in eviction”
If you google “questions landlords should ask tenants “ there are some good lists