Hello all, I am currently in a position that the old contract of our tenants ends and about to advertise my property again for the next ones.
I have a question in regards to documents we are allowed to ask from potential tenants. Are we allowed to ask for legal documents asking agents usually, like references , bank statements in order to get an idea of who is the person you renting your property ? Is there any guideline or process you’ve used that works well maybe ?
As well as an agent as @tatemono suggests, you can ask for some things yourself as extra checks
Google ‘questions to ask tenants’ there’s lots of lists
You legally have to ask for ID and right to rent -agent will do for you if you don’t know how
Bank statements and savings accounts statements good idea to work out income and outgoings to know if they can afford and if they are going to be short of cash at the end of every month.
Credit history - you can get this via experian or ‘checkmyfile’, Past addresses -Use a referencing service like OR one or Homelet or others - they will get hold of various credit info from tenant, the employer, credit history. Or use agent to do this stuff as they have access to more sources than you
Past LL refs - tho latest may have vested interest in giving good ref to help a bad tenant leave
Check different sources of income (payslips etc) and make sure you understand properly- I had someone recently claim they had £20k pa from stocks and shares, turned out they that £20k worth of stocks/shares and was drawing it down so after a year of doing that they wouldn’t have enough income from other sources to pay the rent
Well, if you do have an agent, don’t be asking the applicants for these things in addition to the agent doing it. Ask the agent to pass on all this paperwork to you and don’t agree to let to anyone until you’ve seen all the paperwork and are therefore happy with the agent’s recommendation.
To clarify-What I had in mind was an agent will commission an affordability report such as homelet for you but may well not go through bank statements so you may want to get those yourself. …
And you definitely should see 6 months of bank statements.
But you should request them via your agent if you have one. Having applicants deal with simultaneous requests both from landlord and agent is likely to lead to confusion both in the application process and also later when issues arise relating to the tenancy. If you have an agent, use them for communication unless they have proved themselves inept.
If that’s the case no problem, but I’m sure I’ve read posts on this forum where LLs have thought when the fixed term expires the tenant will be leaving. It occurred to me that it could possibly be the same scenario but it was perhaps just how the original post was worded. I’m sure the OP will respond and clarify .
The fixed term comes to an end, no noticed given. We were actually renting the property to a bank who brought a professional from Korea on an assignment 3years. Therefore that comes to an end and they will go back to their homey country, that’s the case. So we are now in process to advertise it again for the next ones.
Reason is purely to have an extra security you got the right people to pay the rent on time and be reliable. That of course doesn’t prove anything but is just an extra check for the landlord. We all do care about our properties, to be looked after and that’s all.