We have an applicant who is placing a deposit and providing all the required information promptly for referencing. He can afford the rent and is willing to pay six months in advance. However, he does not have references from a previous landlord—only a letter from someone for whom he did house-sitting.
The referencing report includes the following note:
Based on the information provided, XXX may be suitable to undertake the tenancy; however, some issues or discrepancies were detected.
In the Letting History section, there is a note in red stating “Proceed with caution.” This is explained as follows:
No Referee Provided: The applicant has informed us that they are currently living with friends or family; therefore, no referee details were requested.
When we shared the info from the referencing report and asked about the previous tenancy, the applicant explained that they did not part on good terms with the landlord, citing neglect from the landlord’s side. They stated that they were not evicted but had a dispute regarding the deposit.
Given this background, we are uncertain how to proceed. We’ve been advised that obtaining OR Rent Guarantee Landlord’s Insurance might be a sensible precaution.
Every tenant starts at some point without having references from a previous landlord
Some landlords do hold back part of deposit for various reasons and tenants may contest - you can ask potential tenant their side of the story, and for details of previous landlord to obtain theirs. It’s like anything else in the referencing process- you can always ask for more info. What exactly was the dispute /what did LL neglect to do and what did they try to withhold from deposit and why? What did deposit scheme decide? You can say that you don’t want to judge but it will help to understand what the dispute was about properly as you don’t want it to happen again so you and potential tenant need to try to have same expectations on whatever sort of issue caused it (cleaning or maintenance or whatever).
It could be something very simple (eg a 1st time tenant who didnt know they have to behave in a tenant like way and do basic repairs like replacing lightbulbs) or something more serious eg somebody who is persistently late paying or didn’t report problems promptly so they ended up costing much more to repair. Referencing has flagged an issue it is reasonable to find out more. If they won’t explain themselves, it’s a big red flag. (Just like if report showed somebody had a history of late payment or CCJs you would ask to try to understand whether whatever caused their financial problems us still an issue or not)
Rental insurance is one possible mitigation, so is a guarantor. So is increasing the proposed rent to account for cost of insurance and (if they won’t provide details or an explanation) frankly the extra risk of a tenant who has had issues with a past LL but won’t say what these are - personally in that case I’d just find someone else. we can’t expect every tenant to have a perfect track record tho, depends on gut feeling sometimes.
Ps 6m in advance won’t be legal under RRB which will come into force v soon and not sure if retrospect nature of RRB will mean you have to return it or if tenancy will stil be legal if you keep it - be v careful about this get advice from people more expert than me. There are some ‘professional tenants’ exploiting rules see eg Set-up by tenants!
I’d be willing to explore a little deeper by asking for the landlords details and getting his side of the story. If the applicant refuses, I’d move-on.
I’d avoid 6months in advance is not a safety net as once that 6months is up they can continue to live in the property rent free and it will take you a lot of money and time to get them out
The six-month term isn’t the issue here, and I’m not particularly concerned about that, or could be seduced into it.
What bothers me is that OpenRent Referencing didn’t pick up on this note: “Referee was not requested.” Why not? We’re paying for a referencing service where the team is expected to contact referees — assuming the details are available — rather than simply rely on whatever information the tenant provides and then sign off responsibility.
I’ve since approached the tenant myself (to do what the referencing team should have done), and the prospective tenant explained that they no longer have contact details for their previous landlord. The tenant claims that the ex-landlord tried to keep their deposit due to mould issues in the flat. They also shared that nearly two years ago, other tenants from Bradman Way, Stevenage, contacted the BBC about mould problems. However, I haven’t been able to find any record of this online. When I asked about the deposit scheme resolution, the tenant said the deposit was not registered with any scheme.
I’m aware I might be wasting my time, but I’d still like to get to the bottom of this — for the sake of fairness, if nothing else. As someone said earlier, I don’t want to judge, but I do want to understand the situation properly, but is getting a bit messy…
def time wasting. If someone’s backstory has holes in it, I don’t hang around waiting for them to fill them. I let them know that I’m proceeding with a different applicant and move on.
if the applicant doesn’t provide details to enable the referencing service to proceed, then that’s not a fault of the referencing service.
@Glenn1 OR referencing is cheap and I suspect largely automated/AI. You get what you pay for [and then only sometimes]. They only have to be cheaper than all the other automatic services for them to get good reviews.
Does seem rather unlikely tenant no longer has contact details, they can tell you name of landlord and address as per the tenancy agreement, and can tell you how much rent was and show you evidence they paid it on time [monthly bank statements will show the amount going out] -tho OR referencing should have already checked all that, tbh. Bbc may not have run the story or may not have used their case/address/example
If they can tell you what they think cause of mould was, and what action they and the LL tried to deal with it, you can then try to decide if they will be suitable for your property. If their deposit wasnt in a scheme then may have been a dodgy LL. If LL didnt do any inspections and only found mould at end either wasnt that serious [or tenant would have been complaining during tenancy] or tenant wasnt cleaning, heating and ventilating place properly. For example if they indicate there were leaking roofs/gutters or other pipework problems causing water to get in, that is one answer. If on the other hand they say LL told them they had to ventilate by opening windows and keep heated and they didnt because they were worried about heating bills, that’s a different matter. If it was serious they will have photos of the mould as it developed, if it wasnt and LL found small amounts and tried to claim from deposit, but didnt manage to then they must have taken [dated] photos of place before leaving to refute the claim, which tenant can share with you
altho i sympathise with the potential tenant, as others say they have to be able to stand up their claimed backstory esp if not enabling you to verify it via past LL, and if you cant satisfy yourself they are being honest, why take a risk