How long to wait

Prettypenny

How long should I wait before I call and ask about my rental application
We are doing a joint application with our current estate agent. Earning 4x the rent per month with 18 months rent in savings
Only issue could be I work for agency, but showed proof of earnings.
We went to an appt yesterday morning, the landlord has made some rejections already.
What are the chances and how long should we wait?

muhandis

It's not clear to me what stage you are at.

Are you talking about waiting to hear whether your offer to rent the property has been accepted or not?

Or have you paid a holding deposit and are waiting to hear about whether the landlord is happy with the reference checks?

By when do you need to move? I guess that will dictate the urgency of the situation.

Prettypenny wrote: »

How long should I wait before I call and ask about my rental application
We are doing a joint application with our current estate agent. Earning 4x the rent per month with 18 months rent in savings
Only issue could be I work for agency, but showed proof of earnings.
We went to an appt yesterday morning, the landlord has made some rejections already.
What are the chances and how long should we wait?

tom9980

I would allow a day for the Agent/Landlord to submit info to the referencing company, they tend to need 3-5 days to build the report and get responses from employers etc. You then need to add some time for the agent/landlord to come to their own decision based on the information they get back.

Prettypenny

Do they speak to your employer, they didn't last time

muhandis

It depends on how thorough the reference check is that the landlord is paying for. Most of the online ones (Openrent, LetAlliance, UKTenantData, Homelet, etc) do confirm employment with employers (usually over email).

Prettypenny wrote: »

Do they speak to your employer, they didn't last time

Prettypenny

I'm guessing down to data protection it's just are they an employee?

muhandis

Prettypenny wrote: »

I'm guessing down to data protection it's just are they an employee?

Yes, just the basic information. See below for an example of a tenant reference check, employment section.

I'm not sure data protection has much to do with it if it's considered necessary to progress your application and you have given permission for them to check references (on one of the documents you've signed).

Just to be clear, this is not to say that YOUR reference check will be in the same way. They might be happy with just payslips.

Prettypenny

Thanks
Hope it doesn't take much longer then

Prettypenny

Last time we were accepted that afternoon. I guess that's not normal!

muhandis

I guess it just differs from LL to LL.

One of my past LL's idea of a reference check was having a look at a copy of my payslips on my phone, that's it, job done.

Otoh, there are others that are far more thorough, especially if the LL has some form of rent guarantee insurance which is dependent on the tenants passing a certain minimum level of referencing.

Look at the below referencing request that I received as a landlord for my ex-tenants. Overkill, to say the least!

Prettypenny wrote: »

Last time we were accepted that afternoon. I guess that's not normal!

Prettypenny

Well what it says they will do is very minimal by comparison of other estate agents so I'm hoping that they will have been in touch with landlord and he's giving the info some thought