Will I be rejected to rent following my credit checks?

alexletts14

Hi,

Myself and my partner are looking to rent our first property, however I am becoming increasingly worried following signing for the relevant checks to proceed.
Our letting agents use Let Alliance, and in order to proceed with the application, they required us to provide consent for them to access 12 months of transactions (incomings and outgoings) from our bank, which we had to approve through our relevant banks.
I'm becoming really worried as this is our first "proper" rented property - we have been students for the past 4 years. Because we've been students, I have an interest-free overdraft that I of course have not yet paid off due to only just finishing university that I am quite deep into, however my partners student overdraft is pretty much paid off as he has started employment straight after finishing university. I have got a teaching job that pays pretty well, however I don't start that until the end of August and the letting agents are aware of this.
Further to this, me and my partner did matched betting whilst we were at university, so I'm worried that this will also show up (gotta do what you gotta do).
We also have never owned a credit card, or applied for any credit, except from when I was a victim of identity fraud 2 years ago that has now been resolved.
I don't know whether I am being overly anxious about this, however I'm a complete newbie to the renting scene and I feel like a fish out of water!
Any advice/guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Comms69

And your bank agreed?! Never, ever do this. Ever.


I'm sure the check will be fine. However when you allow this kind of access you can lose a lot of fraud protection offered by the bank.

muhandis

I've used Let Alliance and what you're talking about is the Open Banking API they use to seamlessly check income/outgoings for a few banks. Nothing to worry about in the process itself.

As far as I can remember, it's an option (they say it's the quickest) and not compulsory. You don't have to agree to it. The alternative is the traditional way where they ask for statements, payslips, etc.

It's hard to say how that information is used to judge your creditworthiness. But as long as your income and outgoings show that you can comfortably meet the rental payments, it should be fine.

Given that you aren't in employment yet (and so I assume your bank account doesn't show any steady income), I would call Let Alliance proactively and ask if I need to provide anything extra for the employment reference.

Comms69

muhandis wrote: »

I've used Let Alliance and what you're talking about is the Open Banking API they use to seamlessly check income/outgoings for a few banks. Nothing to worry about in the process itself.

As far as I can remember, it's an option (they say it's the quickest) and not compulsory. You don't have to agree to it. The alternative is the traditional way where they ask for statements, payslips, etc.

It's hard to say how that information is used to judge your creditworthiness. But as long as your income and outgoings show that you can comfortably meet the rental payments, it should be fine.

Given that you aren't in employment yet (and so I assume your bank account doesn't show any steady income), I would call Let Alliance proactively and ask if I need to provide anything extra for the employment reference.

I've never had to provide statements, and I've rented dozens of properties - it cant be that common.


(and again I wouldn't provide them)

muhandis

Might not be common. But I have, both to self managing private landlords and the Openrent type checks. Let Alliance asks for it as well as they say on the webpage I shared. I guess it's up to you whether you want to provide a particular piece of documentation or not.

Comms69 wrote: »

I've never had to provide statements, and I've rented dozens of properties - it cant be that common.

(and again I wouldn't provide them)