UK Landlord Forum / Life

I have been lucky so far having had tenants who I knew (I know bad idea) and who turned out to be model tenants.

I now need to start a process of vetting tenants and would like to know what is the most effective (and pragamatic) way of going about this. I know I can get an agency to do this (and it might be the only thing they are any good at) but would like to know if anyone does this on their own and how they filter out the bad eggs.

So I had thought along the lines of

Photo ID
Employers Details and Reference ( how long should tenants have been emplyed for ??)
Bank statements (how many months?? 1, 3, 6 ??)
Previous address and previous landlord reference
Credit checks/CCJ checks/Electoral role checks/Bank account number checks

Comments please, and in particular how would I go about doing these, and do I need persmission to do it :

Credit checks
CCJ checks
Electoral role checks
Bank account number checks (to check their bank account is real)

Thanks

Companies exist, not Agents, who can do this for you... some on-line portals offer this as an additional part of the service.

I have found, more than credit checks and things like you reference above, that there is nothing better than doing viewings yourself and making a call from there.

I have let to 2 people who had bad credit history based on my gut feel... I am not The Mentalist or anything like that... I have not run into trouble with those (yet) but they would have failed the checks. Vetting is an all-encompassing term here and you'd not mentioned the viewings, but maybe it's a given that you'll do these yourself. Remember the right to rent checks as well, now.

Quote from: Hippogriff on January 17, 2016, 09:43:54 AM
Companies exist, not Agents, who can do this for you... some on-line portals offer this as an additional part of the service.

I have found, more than credit checks and things like you reference above, that there is nothing better than doing viewings yourself and making a call from there.

I have let to 2 people who had bad credit history based on my gut feel... I am not The Mentalist or anything like that... I have not run into trouble with those (yet) but they would have failed the checks. Vetting is an all-encompassing term here and you'd not mentioned the viewings, but maybe it's a given that you'll do these yourself. Remember the right to rent checks as well, now.

Thanks for your reply HG.
Yes I will be doing the viewings I agree this is important.  Interesting that you seem to be suggesting that it may be easier to outsource the credits checks, I will look into that, but if you have any recommendations for agencies which worked well for you I would be interested.

Also could you expand on your last sentence - I didnt get it, so I may be missing something important.
Thanks again.

You might want to have a look at my post on another subject "Long term rental to councils"  where I outlined exactly how tenants were vetted to within an inch of their lives when being considered for private renting through the local authority.  It might give you some ideas if you want to vet them yourself.

Quote from: Martha on January 17, 2016, 10:01:04 AMAlso could you expand on your last sentence - I didnt get it, so I may be missing something important.
Thanks again.

https://www.gov.uk/check-tenant-right-to-rent-documents

Thanks to everyone who replied.