Credit checks on tenants

Incisor

clutton wrote: »

any tenant who does not want to complete a comprehensive tenancy application form such as that to be found on www.landlordzone.co.uk should not be considered as a suitable tenant in my view. sadly in this day and age there are con-merchants and we all need to be extra vigilant in checking tenants - who exactly does your tenant think is going to steal his identity ?

LLs can do most of the checks themselves, except credit status, as long as the tenant has signed a Data protection disclaimer sheet (see the last page of ab ove form)

As a prospective tenant, I would be really hesitant about filling in a form on 'some website' proposed by a newbie Landlord without agent, just for the quoted reason of ID fraud. Even if there are no instances at the moment, I am fairly sure that after this thread, instances will crop up.

If anyone does it, they need to be really sure of the provenance of the site used. It is no good using a site recommended here by a 1 post newbie. The danger is that a newbie landlord may choose such a recommendation and a tenant may provide info in all innocence.

Bungarm2001

I agree...I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to fill in an online form with that much personal detail unless it was a safe and secure site like landlordzone...possibly...even then I think I would print it off and send it recorded (if possible). I wouldn't have thought that surely, with all the warnings out there about dodgy websites etc, anyone would be daft enough to do that on an unverified website??

And Snooze...you've got the wrong end of the stick mate... If when we interview prospective tenants they look decidedly uncomfortable at our mentioning needing to see NI number and/or licence numbers, then I would probably stop the interview fairly quickly after that, depending on various other questions we might ask. (some might not drive, others might not have a NI as a foreign national)

We do actually like to see a passport mainly because we let to a lot of foreign students and there is always a possibility of shall we say 'mix-ups' to put it politely. (read: subletting etc etc)

You are again wrong about credit card numbers...no-one as far as I know asks for that and also the 6 months up front rent...we have never asked...we'd never get it from our type of tenants anyway

Bank accounts work both ways...we have their details, and they have ours. They ALSO have our address and phone number. We rarely have the tenants phone number(s) as we never ask.

As for references...get real...of COURSE we are going to ask for them. Would you hand over the keys to something that is worth many thousands of pounds and vulnerable to all sorts of damage and/vandalism to a complete stranger without at least finding out who s/he is and where they work etc etc?? If you did then you would be a complete fool.

Snooze

Bungarm2001 wrote: »

As for references...get real...of COURSE we are going to ask for them. Would you hand over the keys to something that is worth many thousands of pounds and vulnerable to all sorts of damage and/vandalism to a complete stranger without at least finding out who s/he is and where they work etc etc?? If you did then you would be a complete fool.

When I was a landlord between 92 and 03 I judged every person on their own merits. My rental agreement was one sheet of A4 basically stating the deposit amount, the notice period and who was responsible for the bills; and that was it. I never bothered asking for references and never checked up on any that were freely provided either. False references can be knocked up by anyone in approximately 2 mins and therefore are a complete waste of time. Never bothered with credit checks, guarantors or checking bank account details either and I certainly would never ask for passport and NI details :eek: . What I would do is meet up with the tenant at their current residence, have a long chat with them and see how they live and then make a decision based on a combination of my own judgement and gut feeling.

Out of the 26 tenants I had over that period (between 4 houses) I only had "big" problems with 4 of them - 3 of them what would be considered "professionals" to you and 1 on DSS (one of the "professionals" turned out to be a smack dealer).

Out of the remaining 22 I had no issues that couldn't be easily resolved and 15 of those 22 were DSS. I would say every one of them either had kids, pets or smoked (or even a combination of all of them) and it was never a problem.

Rob

clutton_2

i did not say fill in a form on line !!!! i print off the landlordzone tenancy application form and ask prospective tenants to complete it. i then verify all the information they have given me.

i need sight of a passport for ID purposes - as do many many businesses today

i need NI number in case they do a flit owing rent and i can then have them traced and get an attachment of earnings order from the court for the defaulted rent.

i never ask for 6 months rent in advance either

i sometimes ask for bank statements - particularly if it is a new renter (just left home or whatever) who has no prior landlords references so that i can see if they can afford my rent