By A landlord asked us this week: “How do I stop chasing rent or damages?” Fair question. The best way to avoid arrears and damage is to stop them before the tenant moves in, so here’s what we check before anyone gets your keys.
Every tenant goes through nine checks before we say yes. Five are about whether they can pay. Four are about who they are, how they treat a home, and keeping you on the right side of the law.
Five checks that protect your rent
Arrears start when the rent doesn’t fit what someone earns. These five checks test that fit with real evidence, before anyone signs.
| Check | What it protects you from |
|---|---|
| Credit check | A soft check for CCJs, IVAs, bankruptcies or active adverse credit. These are the clearest signs someone has missed payments before |
| Employment reference | Taking their word for it. We speak to the employer directly to confirm the job and the pay |
| Income verification | Overstated income. Open banking shows what really lands in their account over the last 12 months |
| Affordability | Rent that stretches them too far. Their yearly income has to be at least 35 times the monthly rent |
| Supporting documents | Payslips and bank statements, so we can see the pay genuinely goes into their account |
A reference tells you what an employer says. Open banking shows what actually arrives. The tenant gives us read-only access and picks their latest income payment, and we can see every matching payment over the past year. To put the 35 times test in numbers: on rent of £750 a month, someone needs to earn at least £26,250 a year.
Four checks that protect your property and keep you legal
The landlord reference. We ask their current landlord how the tenancy has gone and whether there were any issues. It’s the next best thing to seeing how someone looks after a home before they look after yours.
Home visits. In some cases we also visit the tenant at their current home. There’s no better way to see how someone will treat your property than to see how they treat the one they’re in now.
ID verification and KYC/AML checks. We verify every tenant’s identity and, as the law requires, check their proof of address and screen for politically exposed persons, sanctions and criminal watchlists. You know exactly who is living in your property.
Right to Rent. We check every tenant, British or not, so you stay on the right side of the law. For foreign nationals we verify their share code with the Home Office. And if a visa has an expiry date on a fully managed property, we get in touch before it runs out to get their updated status.
And for the risk that’s left
No check removes the risk completely, but each one lowers it. For what’s left, we offer rent guarantee cover and flatfair, a deposit alternative that covers up to ten weeks of damage, double the five week cap on a standard deposit.
The bottom line
Good tenants are chosen, not found. Do the same checks, the same way, every time, and you know who they are and that they can pay before you hand over the keys.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/shorts/iJ_JbEES-Uo
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