I am about to rent a property on open rent. Do I have to do ID checks on the landlord. Normally when renting a property you should request from the landlord the following: EPC certificate, proof of ID, land registry document. Can I request this and should I? The landlord says this is confidential and in any event he says that he has provided this to open rent in order to register his ad. I be grateful to hear your thoughts?
Thanks
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You are not required to carry out any such checks and/or documentation leat alone I.D.
The property advertised must state the said EPC rating, if not then enquire why not or you can check online your self and download the EPC for the said property using the address of the property.
When you do the handover/takeover the Landlord is legally bound to automatically provide you with a plethora of documentation such as the Gas certificate CP12, EPC etc and if he doesn’t then he will be in breach of regulation immediately of which you can take action or demand such documentation.
Not sure if i would ever show a tenant my I.D. as im not the one under scrutiny as i am providing the goods, it is the tenant whom is to be trusted with the property whom needs to be fully checked of who they are etc to decide if the risk is acceptable or not you see.
You should always check to see if the Landlord is part of any organisation such as the NLA National landlords Association which clearly proves their competence and will provide peace of mind to the tenant.
i hope this helps.
But as a tenant you need to check that the person is the owner and they are not subletting the property to you. You can only do this by checking there ID to see that it matches the land registry document. Or do open rent do this in any event and I shouldn’t have to worry about this?
I am a landlord I would have no problem showing a tenant my driving licence. as long as I see theirs.
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interesting as i have never come across such a situation but the question seems to stand well though and clearly deserves a good answer i see as sub-letting does happen and i have had it happen to me, however sub-letting is 1 contractual issue for sure yet if the person was to claim they were called the same name as the real owner then this is whole different bag of tricks as then it would become Fraud and deception with intent which is a criminal matter plus the said sub letter person would also like to be paid hence would need to reveal their name or they wouldn’t be paid so im really not sure your checks are good enough if you are trying to ensure your proposed landlord has the right to rent to you or not.
Please dont forget that many landlords are not on Land Registry + many properties are not on Land Registry if they have just been flipped around for instance so your checks are largely rather loose at best yet not pointless.
Do also note that the said landlord may be an Agent or a representative of the Landlord hence wouldn’t appear on land Registry either.
My suggestion is firstly contact the local authorities for the property and find out if the said property is licensable or not as if it is then the local Authorities will of already carried out all pertinent checks and more on the Landlord and will be able to tell you if they are “Fit and Proper” as a Landlord which should supersede any long story checks you may be thinking of doing your self, big time saver here.
In any event you can go onto gov.uk website and download the " How to Rent guide" which should also be further helpful, failure to all of the above then contact “Shelter” for help.
Thanks