Self Employed - Renting

ejp7982

Hi all

My partner and I are about to rent a house - he has a stable job (been there 15 years!) and earns £22k a year.

I set up as self employed on 1 Feb this year as an HR Consultant - and just a bit concerned as to how I can prove my income. I have contracts (with one month notice) in place with 7 clients to the monthly value of £1800 - and then anything else I do on top of that is extra.

The monthly rent is £800.

Since I started in February I have invoiced almost £10,000 in fees - and can prove this through invoices and bank statements and the contracts with clients.

Would this be enough? The Agent said they might need to contact my old employer - slightly worried about this as I've essentially set up as a competitor - so they may not be too pleased in doing this!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated :-)

richardw

Perhaps do a forecast of net income to the end of the tenancy and also describe what your forecast was for Feb-May and detail what was actually achieved for this period and show that to the agent.

theartfullodger

Offer previous tax returns and old payslips and your accounts. Presumably you've done tax return to 5th April 2013 including your new work so that would be HMRC agreed evidence.

Good luck with the job.

grifferz

I was in a similar situation to you 4 years go when we started renting this place, and my lack of 2 years of accounts caused me to fail the income check, even though I could prove income in others ways.

The landlord settled for a higher deposit. The other thing I was prepared to do was pay 6 months rent up front, but it didn't come to that.

In truth I suspect it was just the letting agency being a combination of awkward, inflexible and out for anything they could arguably extract from me. Good luck in finding one not like this!

longtimelurkersam

when you say self-employed, do you really mean self-employed trading as a sole trader or as a director of your own limited company? I only ask as most organisations that I work with require their consultants to contract through their own limited company.

If you are sole-trader and only started in Feb then you won’t have been through self-assessment yet, but richardw’s suggestion of forecasting is probably the most logically way to approach it along with P60’s etc from previous employer. What you want to do is build the picture of successful employee who has gone alone to be successful in business for himself.

If you are in fact a limited company, you shouldn’t have too much problem based on the fixed contracts although you will need to submit copies as part of your application. They will want a reference from your employer (yourself!) but they won’t accept that so you will need your accountant to complete it. I’ve been through this twice in last couple of years as a consultant, what you need to do is get hold of the referencing company on the phone and explain it to them as they are not always aware of how it works.

magiciansgirl

I feel your pain, am in exactly the same position. I did submit a tax return but as it was for a partial first year of trading and showed a loss because of set up costs, I failed the Keysafe Tenant Vetting Process. They then failed my partner, £31K a year, owns a house in Yorkshire (we are in London) as they said his salary was not enough to cover my share of the rent. I do in fact have savings in excess of £60,000 which I had provided evidence of, plus I am due to inherit a very nice sum of money shortly; this was simply ignored. At the request of the agent we thirs morning agreed to pay 6 months rent in advance from my savings, and although this means the landlord and agent would be quids in, they are now saying the landlord's insurance requires us to provide a guarantor for the rent who also has to go through the Keysafe process..... grrr.

BUT you have far more positive self-employed figures than I do, so I'm really hoping you won't get this grief.

I'm only mentioning my issue because if you do get asked to find a guarantor I'd like you to have more notice than I've had! It's a big 'ask' of someone and we are doing it on the hoof....

grifferz

magiciansgirl wrote: »

At the request of the agent we thirs morning agreed to pay 6 months rent in advance from my savings, and although this means the landlord and agent would be quids in,..

Well it's not that much of a moneyspinner for them.. it just means they get the money sooner than they would otherwise have done. You were always going to pay them that money. 6 months of interest on that is probably pitiful.

magiciansgirl wrote: »

they are now saying the landlord's insurance requires us to provide a guarantor for the rent who also has to go through the Keysafe process..... grrr.

...but this does sound unreasonable. They've already mitigated their financial concern by getting you to pay 6 months up front, they should not need anything else.

As you'll see from other threads going on right now, if the guarantor deed is done properly then it covers unlimited liability, which I personally wouldn't consider fair to ask of someone except in the direst circumstances. And if not done properly it's worthless..

ejp7982

Thank you everyone for your help!

I've spoken to the agent and they have said that an accountants reference with confirmation sales and projected for the next 12 months would be good + P45 from previous employer.

I think I am lucky in the respect that i have minimal costs and have clients on monthly retainers.

It is crazy though - i advise clients on redundancies day in and out so i know more than most that NO job is secure, so being SE really shouldnt carry the risk factor it does.