Do Estate Agents do Credit Checks for lettings?

oliviaolivia12345

account no longer being used thanks to bullying from forum members.

mandi

Yes Olivia, and they usually charge an hurrendos fee to do it :mad:. They wont always refuse you if your in reciept of housing benifit , depends on the owner really..

mandi

In my area ( cumbria ) about £ 40.00 Oliva .. not sure aboout the other areas sorry . this is the credit check only, have you got someone with a good credit history wh would stand as a guaranntor for you ? and..


have you tried an advert of your own in the local paper , just an idea, but maybe worth a try..

PasturesNew

Private agent fees to rent can be as much as £200. Some charge per person. My fee was £176.

What is acceptable is up to each individual landlord. They might want, say, 6 months' rent in advance.

When I moved, my flat cost me over £2000 up front as I paid

- £176 agent fees
- 1.5 months' rent as a deposit
- 6 months' rent in advance

Housing Benefit is a tricky one as landlords get charged extra insurance in a lot of instances. Also, claimants tend to be paid 4 weeks in arrears, yet rent is payable monthly in advance. So they disallow HB claimants in case there's a shortfall or problem in paying out, or because of the insurance issue.

nelly_2

Poster on here southernscouser asked this the other day on here

Anyway as I pointed out its them who are asking for credit as you pay a month in advance plus deposit!

Tell them you doing a credit check on them and charge double!

suzybaby2001

Our fee was £120 each (just moved in with my bloke).

What really got me though was that I had to ring around for the referencing agency in work time as they were so useless! We were told we'd lose our admin fee if we were refused on the basis of credit files so I got straight on to Experian, Call Credit and Equifax to check there was nothing on my file I wasn't aware of. A couple of these companies have a free trial period, which I cancelled as soon as the application was successful.

mandi

nelly wrote: »

Poster on here southernscouser asked this the other day on here

Anyway as I pointed out its them who are asking for credit as you pay a month in advance plus deposit!

Tell them you doing a credit check on them and charge double!

:rotfl: :rotfl:

ruggedtoast

Private landlords can do whatever they want. Providing they refund your deposit they can pull out of the deal on the morning youre due to move in. The situation is much better in Europe but our government has made very sure that along with denying home ownership to as many FTBs as possible, renting is a very raw deal too. Cant upset the landlord class doncha know.

tbs624

Olivia - it’s the combination of a poor credit history and the housing benefit that will limit your options. Suzy mentioned above about getting a copy of your own credit report from the 3 credit referencing agencies, which would be a good start (read MSE Martin’s own advice on improving your credit rating here: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/credit-rating-credit-score)

Even if you find a private LL who doesn’t use an agent, most of them will rightly insist on any tenant being credit checked.

You don’t want to be paying out LAs admin charges unnecessarily ( in addition to credit check fees) so you’d need to be upfront about your full situation.

As Pastures New says, you will probably need to get yourself a guarantor, who will also need to pay a fee to be credit checked.

Have you spoken to anyone in the Council’s Housing Dept? They have an Private Tenancies Officer who may be able to give you some advice.

Are there are any local Housing Associations that you could apply to?

Snooze

I don't quite see what all the fuss is about.

I've rented on and off for donkey's years, always used private landlord's that advertise in the local rag and not one of them has ever requested a credit check. I've had quite a few request umpteen months rent in advance as deposit but I just tell them to go and swivel and look elsewhere. I refuse to pay more than a months rent as deposit.

Letting agents are just leeches that should be banned as they unnecessarily keep the rental prices inflated because of the extra they stick on to cover their commission.

Rob