So I jave spent 9 days with prospectove tenants, 3x tenants lead tenant, his wife and brother of wife.
During the day of viewing I asked all 3 if they had any adverse credit history. The lead tenant told me he had some debt but its all paid. So no adverse credit history wife and brother nothing at all.
Before I took a holding deposit, I wanted to do basic checks to avoid any issues and be satisfied before I reference tenants. The wife is a house wife so understandably she has no income but the combined income of the other two qould have covered the rent. Anyhow after a week of checking right to rent. Payslips and bank statements I proceeded to referencing.
Upon referencing it appears they all failed, lead tenant has adverse credit history an IVA, income from emoyment cannot be verified. Wife suddenly has a business with a ÂŁ50,000 annual income again cannot be verified wifes brothers credit rating passed but income cannot be verified as the brother and husband have identified transactions that are irrelevant to their employment.
The adverse credit I may have taken a hit on but to make matters worse they informed me they were renting elsewhere and the landlord will not provide a reference.
This is all red flags and I have wasted 9 days and paid for referencing. How will I make a claim to the holding deposit as this has cost me a fortune. It all appears that fake payslips and bank statements were submitted.
If you used the RentNow process through Openrent, then you would need to ask them how it works. If you dealt with it privately then you would need written evidence of their initial claims about their credit history. This would ideally be a signed application form that asks those questions. You would also ideally need to have given them a copy of a holding deposit agreement stating the terms under which the holding deposit may be retained. Without this, they could claim they didnt understand its purpose. If you dont have these things, it may still be worth a try, but if they challenge it, be prepared to refund quickly.
I might get stung on this one as openrent doesnt ask for that info in their application. I also knew no better, but i’ll consider this in the future.
Daz, the article you linked includes a paragraph about the tenant giving false information, but it doesnt say whether OR collects information from the tenant that could be used as evidence, such as requiring the tenant to declare any CCJs, IVAs etc. Is that what happens?
This is the Landlords responsibility. Tha’ts the purpose of self managing. The Landlord can ask any number of questions via the messaging portal, and those messages would be evidence.
Landlords can also set up pre-screening questions to ask automatically all those common questions they should be asking.
Yes, I agree its a landlords responsibility and thanks for confirming that its possible to ask these questions during the process. I just wondered whether they were asked automatically as part of the holding deposit process as I think this would make sense in the context of RentNow
@David122 - Agreed. We could make this part of the pre-referencing process in Rent Now, but that’s the not currently the case. If the community has a question set they think is both exhaustive, without being over-bearing (eg. tenants can actually answer the questions truthfully and easily) we’re definitely open to input.
We’d need to be careful to make sure there are no “gotchas” and everything asked is actually legitimate means within the tenant fees act, but I don’t see why this wouldn’t be possible, and even default, behaviour.
Will raise this thread internally so we can get something in place. Thanks for the suggestion!
Thanks for your enquiry about this property. This is an auto reply to help me gather further information about you to help me consider your enquiry.
Could you please reply to answer these questions;
1) What source of income do you have available to pay for the rent?
2) What is your annual income, or combined annual income if you intent to rent jointly with another person.
3) Have you rented a property before, and if so will your previous/existing landlord be able to provide a reference?
4) Do you have a guarantor available if necessary to support any rental contract?
5) When would you want to move in?
6) Who would be living at the property if you were to move in, and how are you related to them?
7) Do you plan to keep pets in the property, and if so, please provide details?
To clarify, this is asked at pre-screening, so not at the time of holding deposit placement, by which time I would have followed up enquiries, clarified understanding etc.
Thanks for the response Daz. I think you’d probably need to consult your solicitors for watertight wording, but questions such as:
Does anyone applying to be a tenant have any county court judgements against them? If so please give details.
Has anyone applying to be a tenant ever defaulted on a payment to a creditor or have an Individual Voluntary Arrangement with creditors to pay debts? If so please give details.
Has anyone applying to be a tenant ever been subject to a debt relief order or debt management plan? If so please give details.
Has anyone applying to be a tenant ever been subject to bankruptcy proceedings? If so please give details.