Low wage and high rent: will the agency accept my application?

Tiffyx

Hi,

I am new here and I am seeking some advice about renting.

I moved here from another country just a bit more than two years ago and I am currently living with my girlfriend.

For a series of factors (mainly our home became very noisy at night, due to a new nightclub, plus my gf has been commuting all time as she works mainly in another city) we now need to move, possibly as close as possible to her office.

Unfortunately she has a bad credit history, this is related to a specific episode happened about three years ago, she paid everything, but her credit records are still not clean. For this reason it appears letting agents are not going to let anything to her regardless of the very good salary she earns, no debts and no other "black marks" on her history. The home we live in was basically rented to her mum (we are paying renting and bills of course).

She does not want to involve her mum any further, as she's retired. Unfortunately all areas where we should move are quite expensive. She can afford to pay the rent herself handy, so that is not the problem.

She does not want to risk they refusing the application because of her history so the contract should be in my name only. But I started wondering if I have any real chance of being accepted by the agencies.

First I have no credit history in this country as I have no debts, here or everywhere else, and I've never rented or paid anything monthly in the UK.

Second, the renting would be about 60% of my wage which is not horribly low but let's say kinda below the average for my job.

Third, I may have to resign soon, if the company does not allow me to work in another office or remotely, but her job and career comes first. My resignation could happen right in the middle of the application process.

Sorry for the long post.

I hope someone can enlight me as I really do not have any experience in this.

I would like to avoid running around the country looking for houses when there is no hope that I can apply for anything.

Many thanks!

LAEllis

I think you're running the risk of being stuck with no where to live if you up sticks and start applying/viewing, its probably safe to assume they arent likely to rent to you if A: you work so far away B: have no credit history and C: its most of your income (this one depends on LL or EA).

She could get someone, a friend, family member or whatever to be her guarantor and you do the same (either same person or another friend/family member).

I suspect getting her mum back in is the most likely solution, but she really should be working on getting her credit file sorted, check with the big rating agencies, corrections etc etc.

evoke

It all sounds very dodgy to me. Sorry, but that is my opinion.

Both of you are going to fail credit checks so your best bet is to find a dodgy landlord.

axisofunity

evoke wrote: »

It all sounds very dodgy to me. Sorry, but that is my opinion.

Both of you are going to fail credit checks so your best bet is to find a dodgy landlord.

Not the right thing to encourage. Consider the following:

i) Offering to pay the rent in advance (3 / 6 / 12 months as you can afford)
ii) Finding a private landlord, avoiding agencies, but still not a "dodgy one". I.E. ensure your deposit is protected, the contract is valid and so forth. They may be more likely to accept rent up front (Agents might lose out somehow in their mind on these types of deals).

Don't feel forced to get into a relationship with a non compliant landlord (deposit / contracts / etc). While you may have a credit history problem, if you have savings then you should be fine.

Tiffyx

Hi, thank you for yuor reply.

@evoke - Just wanted to clarify that there is nothing dodgy here. Maybe my explanation sounded strange somehow because I am foreign eheheh In my understanding her mum not only guaranteed for her with the current agency and landlord, also the rent is going out from her mum's account (I have to be honest they did everything before me moving here so there may be some details that I'm missing or that just I did not understand properly, my apologies for that). The landlord is absolutely aware of everything and there is nothing hidden.

I feel she just would like to avoid involving her mum and being able to do all on our own but it seems for now we can't...

Based on your answers anyway, it seems my fears were real and it is unlikely to be able to see "my" application accepted, unless someone garantees for us or we get the flat in both's names which however could fail because of her credit history...

Mmmh... It seems we will have to cope with the noisy people for a while then...

I hope in some other opinions, but in the meanwhile I would like to thank you for replying, I have been reading this forum for a while before registering and this community seems really very helpful

evoke wrote: »

It all sounds very dodgy to me. Sorry, but that is my opinion.

Both of you are going to fail credit checks so your best bet is to find a dodgy landlord.