Credit checking a tennant?

[Dr42%er]

I wany to rent my house out privatly and want to know how I go about credit checking a potential tennant.

Many thanks,

Andrew.

[Bird Legs]

The easiest way is to obtain their bank details, and then ask YOUR bank to obtain a normal trade reference - i.e. are they good for the amount of rent. The answer will give you a good idea as to their financial standing and attitude towards their liabilities. If prospective tenants have a good record of meeting their obligations on time and generally keeping their financial affairs in order, they will probably be just as concerned about being a good tenant with regard to noise etc.

[Oneeyedvic]

Short answer is that you can't.

You can either ask the tennant to get his own search from experian / equifax and show them to you (if he is willing) or you can use a lettings agency.

You can search for County court judgements against your tennent here: http://www.registry-trust.org.uk/

[Dr42%er]

Many thanks.

Andrew.

[cascarelli]

Of course you can do credit checks on people, and any private landlord should do this. It'll cost between �15 and �30 depending on what sort of check you want done. Have a look at www.landlordzone.co.uk/dir/credit-checks.htm or www.tenantverify.co.uk/
You can do it online but you'll need certain info from the prospective tenant - there's an application form online to download and give to the tenant to fill in.
Best advice is never take on a tenant without doing credit checks first.

[Oneeyedvic]

Hi again,

Sorry, you can do a check as cascarelli says - what you can't do is a credit check as a finance company would do - this gives a lot more useful information - ie what their monthly commitments are and what their payment history is like.


The credit checks described here (for �30): http://www.tenantverify.co.uk/comprehensive.ht m will not let you kow how long they take to pay. So long as they pay eventually and don't get a CCJ, they will come out clean. They may have a string of arrears or late payments which will not show up.

The other searches they do are simply by contacting the employer and asking the questions, and asking for the normal references!

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