Hi first time on platform, and I’m finding I’m doing a few things kinda wrong (for my needs) But learning ..
I want to use Open rent to Ref & credit check some applicants . But I don’t want to be tied into Rent now. I will issue Lease myself etc .
I have found the platform wants to tie you into Rentnow when someone makes an application. Which is annoying.
So If use the Ref & credit check facility on an Applicant , do I get to fully view & download that report without being automatically tied / directed to using Rentnow ?
Or are there better websites to use to ID, Ref, Address, History and Credit Check potential tenants ?
Great q. Imho the only right way is one where you are happy you’ve checked everything you reasonably can to protect your property/potential commitment to a financial contract with a tenant without being overly intrusive etc
google ‘recommended tenant referencing companies’ you’ll find some alts to OR
Some checks you could possibly do yourself like ‘right to rent’ checks, others such as affordability where companies get access to past bank statements data and eg identify the (hopefully) regular rent payments need a more specialist company with the skills/expertise.
Ask your insurance Co what checks they expect/require to be done
Get a sample/dummy report from those offering and get them to explain how they do their checks
Make sure checks done on everyone in the tenancy agreement who’ll be responsible for paying and any guarantor
Whether others are better or worse - tricky. they will all use the same affordability criteria (1/3 of disposable income), they will all look for ccj judgements. You can try looking at trustpilot or glass door but inevitably these are products where a company has to be sloppy and miss something serious for a LL to later discover.
Employment, affordability, credit, id, right to rent, past addresses. Worth considering if you want to ask for a guarantor (if so they need checking too). Prev landlord refs - best is before their existing LL
there are many lists online of ‘questions for landlords to ask tenants’ to help less formally check people’s circumstances/history always good to know why people are moving and ‘are there any things you’d like to tell me about before they show up in the referencing etc checks’.
Remember if you collect any personal info you should register with ICO and issue the tenant with notice on how you’ll use it and protect it