Rejected by Homelet

Well02

Hi all,

me, my sister and my brother wanted to rent a house at £1175 per month. I am a student nurse and also work part time on a flexible contract. I get a bursary of about £8000 and can work up to 15 hours per week. I fully expected my application to be rejected because I have one satisfied CCJ (£330) from November 2007. Surprisingly, my brother's application was also rejected. He is on a fixed term contract that's up for renewal in May 2014 (8 months left). He earns £28000 per year. My sister's reference check was the only one that came back satisfactory. She's on a fixed term contract that expires in May 2015; she's also on £28000 per year.

We were ill-advised before paying £375 in agent's fees, (despite me having reservations about passing the reference check because of my credit history and the fact I'm a student), that from the information provided, we should be successful. After waiting about a week for the checks to be completed, I have just found out that the application has been rejected.

The lettings agent basically said my sister's income was enough to cover £933 per month and that we would have to pay the remaining £2662 upfront, plus a months' rent and deposit- £5012!! Also, she would be the only named tenant. This is the first time we are renting privately, so this is all new to us and I just can't believe how expensive this all is. If it wasn't for the fact my brother and sister were on fixed term contracts, I would just advise them to get a mortgage because this is crazy!

Since there seems to be a lot of people in the know here, I thought I'd ask for some advice. My questions are-

What are the options for people who fall short of the criteria for satisfactory reference checks?

What are the options for people on fixed term contracts (possibly the same as the first question)?

Are there any Letting agents that don't use Homelet referencing?

mikeandrach_2

what does the landlord say? my wife and I got an unsatisfactory result from homelet due to having ccjs, but we told the landlord upfront about them, explained when they were, why we had them etc and he accepted us anyway

Well02

mikeandrach wrote: »

what does the landlord say? my wife and I got an unsatisfactory result from homelet due to having ccjs, but we told the landlord upfront about them, explained when they were, why we had them etc and he accepted us anyway

I don't have direct comunication with the LL. I explained to the LA that I could afford to pay half of the advanced payment £1331 plus the months deposite and rent. Then the following half next month. He said they were unable to do it that way and that he had to follow homelet's advice, which I thibk is a bunch of rubbish. The LA said he would try to get the LL to shorten the tenancy agreement to 6 months as this would mean my brother could be a named tenant. I was upfront about everything too.

RAS

Go to the Land Registry and download a copy of the deeds (costs £3).

if you are lucky this will have the address of the landlord's home (or possibly their business).

Well02

RAS wrote: »

Go to the Land Registry and download a copy of the deeds (costs £3).

if you are lucky this will have the address of the landlord's home (or possibly their business).

Wouldn't that be a little weird? But I think you're on to something though. I will ask the LA for the LL contact details. Thanks.

keyser666

Shenat30 wrote: »

Wouldn't that be a little weird? But I think you're on to something though. I will ask the LA for the LL contact details. Thanks.

Cant see the LA giving you the details