Tenant Referencing and Credit Checks – Don’t Gamble with Your Property

How much is your property worth in terms of resale value, rental income and your financial future?

Don’t take a gamble when you’re looking for new tenants, why give your keys to a virtual stranger and just hope for the best?

Tenant referencing and credit checks should play a critical role in your choice of prospective tenants and if you fail to carry out these simple checks, you could soon find you’ll have to deal with one of the following five headaches.

tenant verification

Tenants who cut and run

If you don’t check for references with previous landlords, you may never find out that your new tenants have a habit of doing a runner a few months into a six month agreement.

When tenants leave without notice it can cause you as the landlord a number of problems and untold inconvenience.

A reduction in your income

Having tenants in your property who don’t pay up on time can hurt your bank balance too. They may be able to pay a deposit and first month’s rent but that might be all you ever get from them.

Running a credit check will at least give you an indication of how responsible your tenants are when it comes to their finances and could save you a significant sum.

Expensive damage to your property

Checking on tenants with their previous landlords makes sense both in terms of finances and their general behaviour. You might get a tenant that pays up every month when they’re supposed to but is slowly but surely trashing your property as they go.

A drain on your time

Getting an employer reference is also worthwhile. Someone who has been in a job for a short space of time or who is employed part-time rather than full-time as they told you could result in you having to look for another new tenant sooner rather than later.

Having to find tenants every few months for your rental property can be a very time consuming process and if you’re a letting agency, doing all these checks manually can be an unnecessary drain on your resources.

Some of your possessions going missing

Whether you’re a letting agent or private landlord, nobody wants to see items in rental properties going missing. Identifying who’s responsible can be hard, not to mention having the added hassle of making an insurance claim or replacing the item yourself if you’re the landlord and don’t want to pay your excess.

Source : lettingref