Dear Mr_T, thank you so much for your help and advice, I really appreciated your time to help. As a first time private landlord, I am so worried and feel so vulnerable, and I am so very grateful for all your time to help me out.
I have a few potential tenant asking to see the property. Only one has answered my vetting questionnaire.
Please wish me luck that I find the right and a good tenant soon.
Thank you again
Hello Mr_T and Colin,
Many apologies, can I ask you what references detail do you asked for and for what Length if time? What documents do you check? Do you do credit checking and background checks on your potential tenants? Do you ever go down the guarantor route if needed?
Thank you both very much for your help.
Hi Sung,
You sound very lovely and sometimes thatās the trouble! We get taken advantage of, but despite wanting to find someone quickly you were still cautious, so you did well. We learn from these experiences.
Colin knows about screening questions to ask better than me but I can tell you what I did so you donāt do that!
I am relatively new and have let to a few different sets of tenants, without all references in place. (I made sure I did the Right to Rent) They all let me down by causing damage - although it could have been a lot worse.
Next time I will do it differently and get guarantors etc .
I do wish you luck and hope you find a good tenant soon that you feel confident about.
All the best.
before a viewing I askā¦ Who is your Landlord now, will he supply a referenceā¦, Do you smokeā¦ Where do you workā¦ Is it for yourself onlyā¦ How old are youā¦ do you have a carā¦ do you have childrenā¦ Do you have petsā¦ How much do you earn? If they dont replyā¦ then dont chase them. I have gone for a guarantor and I ALWAYS do a credit check. Make a note of the answers and at a viewing stage ask the same questions again and see if you get the same answers. Do not sign till all checks are done and payment has gone thru.They can ask you any questions as well But you do not have to tell them how much you earn !!
Hello Mr_T, thank you for your kind words. I think I am not confident and as I am
Desperately looking for a tenant and they sense it. I am trying to be stricter to avoid this trouble again.
With Right to rent, will it be enough to get a passport and the settlement letter, if they are from non from the UK?
I was very scared, as once when a group of tenant trying to lower the rent and they just wonāt give up.
I am worried on the guarantor, I think sometimes they give me so limited information and I feel bad for asking the full statements.
Have you ever used the references service on OpenRent? Are they good?
Thank you very much.
Hello Collin,
Thank you so much for the information i will add them to my small questionnaire that I have.
I have two gentlemen asking to view and does not reply to my 10 questions. I am just so afraid that they were evicted before.
As for the actual referencing, do you only ask for employment and landlord references?
Except asking for the bank statement, is there anything I can ask the bank to confirm?
I am sorry for all these silly questions, I just donāt know how I can do it properly without getting an agency and they charge around Ā£600.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate your help.
Mr Sung to be a landlord you have to be bold and determined do not let anyone overide you or it will not go well. Remember its your property
Hi Sung,
I know what you mean. I did not like to ask at the beginning and felt I was being too nosey. I fell for all the sob stories and let people in. One set of tenants gave their notice in at their old place and referencing had not finished but I felt obliged to let them in even though it was their fault for handing in their notice too soon. They defaulted on the first months rent, but did catch up, and when they left they purposefully did damage as they wanted another fixed term contract but I wanted it to go onto a periodic.
The gov.uk websites have all sorts of information on it and will tell you what you need for Right to Rent from all the different countries.
I was certain our tenants had the Right to Rent but did also phone up the Home Office just to cover myself, so you could also do that.
The tenants we had were asking for a rent reduction before they took the property. I explained why we would not be lowering the rent, but once they got in they kept asking even though we said no, I felt quite intimidated by this, as they were in my property. I then felt unable to put the rent up at all!
If someone did this today I would immediately reject them.
I havenāt used the reference service. Is this Rent Guard? If so, they have terrible reviews on Trustpilot.
Personally, if you use them do your own too.
Colin or another long term landlord who has done more referencing might be better at answering that question.
Have you got anyone who could be there with you when you show these people around? It might help your confidence.
Like Colin says you have to be bold in business. You are handing over a lot to complete strangers.
There are good people on here who love to help so ask away.
Hi,
The company is called Housing Hand. My tenant was a student with a partner and a young child. The guarantor was expensive for them and I would have been happy to share the cost of it to retain them but they had to move away to be near family. I think it may be a minimum contract with Housing Hand, so if the tenant has a contract with HH for a year in line with a tenancy agreement but has to move after 9 months it may be that HH the guarantor still charges them until their contract is up. Iām only saying this because of some emails I received after my tenant moved after 9 months although I didnāt check on that. Hope this helps
Hello Colin,
Thank you for your message, I did asked and some of them feel I am asking for too much, especially asking for the bank statement, is 6 months too much?
I am a landlady 
.
Thank you so much for your advice, I hope to toughen up a bit in the future.
Hi Sung asking for 6 months is not too much If they dont want to answer the questions before viewing do not go with them I do know a little bit about this as I have been a landlord for 40 yearsā¦ I use Experion as a referenceā¦ I have to say I do not take a lot of notice of a landlords reference as if they want to get rid of a tenant then they may say the tenant is good when they are bad. Mr T idea of having someone with you is a good idea
Hi Sung,
I am a landlady too! Welcome!
My adult child owns the property but I get the job of management.
I canāt change the profile name.
Dear Mr_T, I fully understand you. I was the same, actually I still feel the same way as you mentioned ānosyā.
I am very sorry to hear about your experience, I canāt believe how horrible some people can be. We all worked hard to get this property to try to make a living and not parasitising on others.
I hope we all will
Find some good and reliable tenants soon.
Today I told the lady I cannot rent to her and my heart felt so bad.
Thank you for the advice regarding calling the
Home Office to make sure, I would most probably believe them. I am not going to use rent guard, if their Information is not reliable.
I have a friend, who said he is able to help, but as he has a family life, he will do his best to be there as much as he can. I hope that with experience I will be more confident.
Thank so much for looking out for me. I really appreciate your help and all the advice.
Thank you, Louise,
I will look at Housing Hand. It will be good to have a back up if I am unable to the reference done by myself.
If Housing Hand charges the tenant after 9 moths, do they still pay you the rent as the tenant left before the end of tenancy agreement?
Thank you so much Colin, I agree with you, regarding the letting agency, as if this is a bad tenant I understand they try to get them out to avoid the possibility to use legal to evict them.
I will put Experion on my list and ask them
To reference my potential tenants, if I feel that I am unable to do it properly.
I really appreciate your help, advice and support, really means a lot to me.
Hi Sung.
Bless you. Itās a very nice, small forum here and lots of long term landlords brains to pick!
I havenāt actually used the Rent Guard perhaps others who have will be able to tell you their experience.
Itās hard to change your personality but think I have grown a tougher skin now and next time will be different. But itās taken a few years! I didnāt have this site before.
Itās easy to get too involved with tenants too, wanting to help and wanting them to be happy. Some people see kindness as a weakness sadly.
Have found it best to just stick to your obligations of the Tenancy and not get involved with anything else.
There are some nationalities who seem to respect men more than women and the tenants we have at the moment, fall into that category unfortunately. Makes it even harder!
Itās good you have someone who may be able to help.
Have you got any others lined up to view?
Good morning Mr_T, my sincere apologies for the delay in my reply.
I agree, I am very grateful for this forum. I have learned so much.
Yes as we are naturally nice we would think others are they same, as we try to help them, but then we just realised that being nice is making us and our family suffer.
I did feel bad when I rejected the lady. I hope the next tenants are nice. I have three lovely girls applying, I am trying to get references sorted and finger crossed it will be smooth.
I fully agree with you that some society seen women below men, I have experienced some very inconvenient experiences in my previous employment.
Big hug Mr_T, letās hope our life will be blessed with some nice tenants 
Good morning Sung,
Thatās so true, I really do hope you get the tenants you deserve, which are of course, lovely ones.
It sounds promising the three girls.
Sorry to hear you are feeling bad about rejecting the last tenants who applied. Maybe in some way you have helped them for next time to see what they need to have ready in way of paperwork.
We are having a lot of nastiness from our tenants and have served their Notices to Quit. This has been going on for some time. I kept making excuses for them as it wasnāt something I would do lightly but itās making me ill. No amount of rent is worth this.
Fingers crossed for you this time.
Let us all know how it goes.
All the best.
Hello Mr_T
I agree, it is stressful, especially at this time, as there are more houses than tenant and some tenants who are looking could be evicted. It is so hard to make sure they are nice.
I had a few who were so eager and I felt scare. First I thought nice of them to love my house, but as time goes by, I realised they have no jobs, or doing cash in hand with no security. The lady I had to reject was so nice but there was no proof of steady income. I was sad to let them go, but I did not want to have to evict them someday.
I hope everything goes well for you, I will
Keep my fingers crossed for you and hope they go peacefully and you get some good tenants soon. How did they take the notice? Are they given sign that they will leave?
Big hug and I hope you will get this sorted.
This is nit very nice, and I hope they donāt give you any trouble.
Best wishes
Sung
Hi Sung,
Sorry, not sure if I replied to you.
They havenāt mentioned anything and donāt think they will leave quietly. They are the type to be difficult, seem to enjoy arguing and am sure they will eek it out for as long as they can, but not really thinking things through as to how it will affect them in the future. Arrogant people.
They like the house and will not want to leave.
How are you getting on with your three girls you weāre thinking of as potential candidates?