Referencing question - wage verified by referee but not matched in open banking?

Landlord Discussion
1

Hi there!

I am currently in the process of setting up a tenancy through open rent. I had viewings and found tenants that matched all the requirements and I have accepted to go ahead with them based on referencing. I have also a guarantor so I have three checks and currently two have passed, and the third is waiting referee response to confirm income.

My question is - as all three reports have come back with income verified by referee, but the next line in the report - verified by open banking says ‘no’. Should I be worried that these don’t match?

The report states:

“Open banking has found sources of income from the employers listed at the bottom of the report, but the report states The list of transactions that were identified for this income source by (tenant) and details concerning incompatibility with the annual gross income, can be found at the end of this document.”

It also says:

“Some transactions were incompatible with their stated annual income and so we were unable to verify their income in this way. This can happen if the tenant didn’t select the right transactions or connect to the right bank account. However, in cases where we have anemployment reference this mismatch has been ignored.”

Should I be concerned about this? As the referee’s have confirmed their incomes.

Any advice or help with this would be really appreciated.

Many thanks

CB

2

If ‘income has been verified by referee’ then its not been independantly verified by each employer. If I am reading your post right.

3

Well each reference has come back with employment verified by employer. It just doesn’t completely match the open banking.

4

@Charlotte68

So all you know is the individuals are employed by the employer.

If you dont have verification from open banking (which shows actual amounts going into peoples bank accounts), could mean they are being paid a totally different amount couldnt it? Or could be they have included a big xmas bonus in their annual total but without that their regular amounts are less

Given the discrepancies, ask to see 6 or 12 months bank statements and latest p60 yourself, and get tenants to tell you when in the month they got paid and how much each month. You can then work out if the amount they are claiming as income is imaginary or not.

If they have been renting before it also then lets you see their regular outgoing rent payments (ask the amounts/dates) which will help reassure you that they can afford your rent amount too

If guarantor has passed you can also get RGI to mitigate risk of non payment

Good luck

5

Ask to see 6 months bank statements…income is one thing but equally important is existing outgoings.

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