Referencing without recent history - Returning to UK from overseas

Tenant Discussion
1

Hello. We are a young British family (couple + 1 infant) with good financial status and savings.

We currently live and work abroad and are looking to move back to UK in order to establish a business. We have good tenancy history in the UK, but that is 3 years ago and older. We also maintained a credit card and positive credit score.

We look to rent an entire property, however we are afraid of referencing process. We have a good credit history but no employment, as we intend to be moving back to UK from abroad and start a business instead of a job. We have good savings, but do not have relatives in the UK and would not like to ask friends to be guarantors / etc.

If we offer some advance rent payment, would that be ok, or would we be deemed fail referencing due to lack of recent history and current UK employment?

Which is the advised approach looking for a property to rent?

Thank you in advance.

2

Hi Aris,

Individual landlords will vary in their preferences when it comes to rent in advance - it’s always best to check directly by messaging landlords on the website. We also have a Help Centre article on this topic here:

Where you have specific questions about referencing, we advise that you contact our referencing partners Rentguard:

01227 467 250
admin@rentguardtenantref.co.uk

If you have further questions about our referencing process, we also provide answers to the most common referencing-related questions here:

https://www.openrent.co.uk/kb/categories/115000051712-Referencing

Specifically you can see how referencing works and what the usual criteria for passing or failing the process are here:

https://blog.openrent.co.uk/how-does-tenant-referencing-credit-checks-work-uk/

Kind regards,
George