I have a prospective tenant, she is an american citizen, she has a residence permit for the Uk her husband is a British and American citizen who is still living in America.
I want to do the referencing but she told me that she checked Openrent conditions and she would not be accepted for referencing is that true? also would he not be able to be referenced by you either?
I see there are other companies who provide an international referencing check, so i was thinking to use them for the referencing…
Also would they be able to take the next step and use the rent now process? i saw on the forum that they must be UK based, does this count? She has a residence permit, and i beleive has been in the UK for more than 6 months. (i will double check this) and he is a British citizen currently living in America and intends to come and live in the UK in a about months time.
will they be able to go ahead with the rentnow process? and are there things that i should be aware of before going ahead?
Please can you get back to me as soon as possible,
I am sure Open Rent will come back to respond to your situation.
In brief, it is not Open Rent that prevents a reference check. Open Rent provides a reference checking agency for us to use, should we wish to use them, but they cannot reference check anyone not living in the UK. Also, Open Rent currently cannot accept an overseas telephone number in their system that support us, and that can cause a problem, although for a small fee they can use Skype to create a UK number for this purpose for them, if the wife or husband does not have a UK number and they feel that they need one. I suspect the wife already has one.
You can do the referencing yourself or through an alternative agency, and many on this forum would be pleased if you can share information on any international referencing agencies that you have come across, because your situation is not unique and frequently occurs.
Of course, you don’t need an agency: you can perform what ever checks you wish yourself.
On the face of it, you can use the RentNow service, except it may or may not fail to provide any useful reference information on the wife and none on the husband, unless he has a UK address. Or you can use those parts of their service, that combined together, almost reproduce the RentNow service, just missing out on the referencing bit.
You and they can certainly use the Open Rent services to set up and agree the tenancy.
If keen, just try it, after all it is very cheap, otherwise if overly careful, manage the whole process yourself or wait for a reply from Open Rent.
Why don’t you do the necessary check by yourself? You can ask for anything as you like to assure yourself they will pay and can afford the rent. E.g. Do they have a job already secured in the UK? if yes, ask for employment contract for you to check, ask for HR detail(name, email and phone), so that you can send an email to confirm their job title and salary. Their currently landlord detail to confirm they have paying the rent on time etc? Normally once the landlord and salary are confirmed and no problem, I would then ask them to select ‘Rent now’ to go ahead.