How do I increase our chances of our rental application being accepted?

Tombo4646

Albermarle said:

If you really want it, then offer £1450/£1500 pm with 6/12 months upfront.

That's the plan if we get turned down, I think!

Tombo4646

saajan_12 said:

I'll go into detail below but nothing you mention is particularly alarming. 

Tombo4646 said:

Hi all! Me and my partner have recently put in a rental application for a property that is £1400pcm. Financially we are lucky enough to be really solid. I have a business that pays me £40k - £50k PA and my partner is on about £120k PA.  - okay so 9x rent for your gross income, or 7x just counting partner's if its harder to prove the consistency in self employment. That's well in excess of what LLs usually look for, which would be closer to 3-4x. 
Despite this, I'm worried about some things that could be perceived as negative and looking for solutions of how to get in front with any future applications if we get denied this one. 

1. I have no rental history as I had been living abroad prior to moving back to the UK earlier this year. - not something that's logged, at most its needed for a reference. I'd be happy with a foreign LL providing a letter, but sometimes LLs just don't respond so if everything else was good then I'd just drop this requirement. 

2. My partner has no rental history fresher than a year, as we've been travelling since I got back to the UK. - as above except a 1 year old reference should also be fine. 

3. We both have a "poor" credit score (on Experian). This is due to neither of us borrowing any money for the past 6 years. We buy everything up front and don't have any phone contracts or anything. Also, due to travelling for the past year, our three months of bank statements have no council tax/utility payments at all. - What you see on Experian includes a lot more info only available to lenders and their made up algo, whereas an agent would be searching publicly available info, mainly around defaults etc. 
Even if you did care about the 'poor' score, in the UK that's a lot less affected by credit usage as it is in US for example, and the main thing is not having defaults / lates etc. Have you been registered on the electoral roll, as that can help.

Our 3 months of bank statements both look good and shows that we both have a decent chunk in our personal accounts. There's no red flags like transactions from betting companies etc. However, my last 3 months doesn't show a lot coming in as my work is very seasonal (spring and autumn). 
- The only effect of that is really the proof of income, but your partner's is so high that it likely doesn't matter. 

The agent is checking us using Rightmove and my main worry is that we're going to end up in a "computer says no" situation due to poor credit scores. I'm worried whichever agency they use will say we have poor credit scores and they will instantly attribute that to us not paying when the reality is that we don't have anything to pay. - I've listed the logical interpretion of your situation (IMO). While I can't account for any random logic the agent / their computer uses, hopefully the above assures you that there's only so much info they could even see to drive a negative decision. 

If we get denied, is that it? Or is it likely we could address their concerns? For instance, if they said we failed their credit check, we could provide a full credit report to demonstrate that we aren't in any trouble? - depends on the LL / agent.. some LLs leave it all to their agent and don't know or want to know. Some will look into the detail and try to make the best decision. Some will get so many applicants that its easier to just pick one where computer says yes. 

Re other things you can do.. 
- offer a few months rent upfront
- offer a guarantor
- offer a copy of your statutory credit report (you can download these for £2, it includes more info than you have to provide but would show that you have no debts etc without the alarming red score). 
- try properties where you rent directly from a LL without an agent involved eg on OpenRent.
- be patient and look for alternative properties.. one will have a LL that doesn't follow the computer blindly. 

BIG thanks for taking the time to write all that! We can offer rent upfront, no problem. I'm hoping that if we do get turned down, we will at least be given reasons why so we can at least ease their concerns. 

The place has been on the market for a couple of months now and apparently, they've had very little interest. We asked if anyone had applied to rent the place when we viewed it and were told (not very convincingly) that they had applications and accepted them but no one followed through. Someone in the office let slip that we were the only ones who applied. Not sure which one is true but either way, it's looking like there shouldn't be much competition, hopefully!

I had never heard of OpenRent. I'm going to check it out. I much prefer meeting people in person than doing things this formally, so that might be the way to go if we get refused this place. 

Thanks again!

Albermarle

The place has been on the market for a couple of months now and apparently, they've had very little interest.

That puts a different slant on it. I ( and probably some other posters) assumed that the property was in demand, as most decent rental property is. In some areas the competition for properties can be pretty fierce.
In this case you should be in the seat, although I would be wondering why there is so little interest in it ?

Tombo4646

Albermarle said:

The place has been on the market for a couple of months now and apparently, they've had very little interest.

That puts a different slant on it. I ( and probably some other posters) assumed that the property was in demand, as most decent rental property is. In some areas the competition for properties can be pretty fierce.
In this case you should be in the seat, although I would be wondering why there is so little interest in it ?

The property isn't what most would consider ideal. It's in dire need of modernisation and doesn't even really have what I would consider a proper kitchen. Despite this. It ticks a lot of our boxes that are hard to find. So much so that the shortcomings aren't such a big deal to us. 

I think some of the things that we want aren't typically desirable to most. It's in the middle of nowhere with rubbish transport links etc. The price reflects all of this though, I feel.

Albermarle

You earn £170K pa between you and you are OK to live in a rented house in dire need of modernisation, with no proper kitchen?
That is a pretty unusual scenario I would think. 

Tombo4646

Albermarle said:

You earn £170K pa between you and you are OK to live in a rented house in dire need of modernisation, with no proper kitchen?
That is a pretty unusual scenario I would think. 

Like I said, we can overlook these as the price is right and the location suits us perfectly. There's a lot of land/stables etc too. I was more hilighting that while this isn't a problem for us, it's probably is for most people. Location and practicality is more important than a super modern property, for us at least.

We just had our application accepted! They've taken the holding deposit but it does state that we will be turned down if our credit score on equifax is below 650. We both fall under this however the only negative thing equifax say about us is that we're not on the electoral register. So the low score is due to having no credit accounts, rather than bad credit. We're hoping they overlook this as they should be able to see that information with a soft check, I hope! Everything else they're asking for seems totally fine.

Fingers crossed! Hopefully it's just a landlord decision and not a computer decision haha.

Mr.Generous

Landlord gets the final say, but if credit check rejects candidate landlord insurance won't cover them. You should be buying somewhere with excellent salary's like you have! The fact they credit checked you means landlord wants you, you only check a candidate you wish to proceed with.

PRAISETHESUN

My advice with finding rental properties has always been to be nice to the person showing you around - the agent, owner, whoever. Tell them about yourself and how you would be a perfect fit for the property. In addition, make the financial side of things look good as well - offer to provide pay slips or bank statements if you are worried they might not think you can meet the rent demands after a credit check (although if they are doing checks they must be somewhat confident as these cost money and they won't do them willy nilly). Worst case you offer some of the rent up front, which sounds like you have the means to do.