Lying on a tenancy reference

geoffky

Sometimes you just have to customise your situation....as many do on a cv....little white ones help you along in life...

missile

Can the reference agencies easily find out who owns a house, and would they go that far?

It is easy to check who owns the property and LL should be on the register. A good agency would go that far.

I would suggest you contact your present LL and politely ask him to confirm that you have lived in the property for X years and always paid rent on time. He may not want to give a glowing reference but I doubt he would lie. He might realise that it is his best interests to help you move on. Remember he is not obliged to say anything.

I would not tell lies. Best to say nothing about your problems with the current LL. If asked you can honestly say I always pay my rent on time by standing order. I never see my LL as he lives overseas.

theartfullodger

Missile stated...

If asked you can honestly say I always pay my rent on time by standing order.

Good point, and easily confirmed by bank-statements. Those, with any comments (ideally none) from regular inspection reports would at least provide solid evidence that you're a good'un....

Hope it works out

Artful

hellokitty08

Ok, to make this clearer, i have worked for three different letting agencies. Just tell them you lived at you current address with family. No one ( i have every heard of) asks for a reference from family.

libster51

What sort of bad reference do you think he will give? If it's financial (i.e. you don't pay your rent on time, there are unpaid bills associated with the property etc) you can counter this by providing your bank statements etc to show everything has been paid up. If you think he may say you've caused damage to the property, see if the new LA's will come round and verify the claims.

This happened to me very recently, although it was out of the blue - landlady told ref agency (Paragon, as it happens) that I had caused "water damage" to the flat (actually a giant damp patch on the wall which has now been verified as coming from a cracked toilet). LA's thought this looked suspicious given that all my other references were very good, so they came round to see for themselves and confirmed that the reference wasn't true.

I would agree with others that honesty is the best policy, and to prewarn the LA/new LL that your current LL may cause problems. Show that you're willing to provide as much supporting information as necessary to confirm your version of events and be as open and helpful as you can - the better you come across, the worse your LL will appear in comparison if he doesn't play ball.

Good luck!