Looking to fill your vacant house or property? Simple, you just need to find a tenant. But wait! Simple isn’t exactly simple. Why? Because any prospective tenant you might come across needs to be ‘filtered’ – and there is a process to screen a tenant’s background - before you can sign a rental agreement with him/her.

One of the most important processes carried out by landlords whilst identifying the right tenant for his or her house, is the Tenant Screening process.

We shall look at WHY this process is so critical for landlords and Letting Agents.

It’s aimed at mitigating the risks from loss and damage to your property. In addition, your tenant should be acceptable not just to you but also to the neighbourhood / society in which your tenant would be moving into.

Drilling down further, let us list out the possible risks or losses we are talking about here. We need to have answers on the below parameters, with respect to the tenant applicant:

Identity - Who is your tenant? What is he/she doing for a living and where does he/she work? These are important questions to answer, in knowing who your tenant is. The last thing you would want it is to look to the heavens when confronted with the question, “Whom have you leased your house to?”
Creditworthiness - Does the applicant have a clean financial track record? Has he, in the past, failed to honour any previous agreements? Answers to this will give you good feeler on whether your tenant will be in a position to uphold the rental agreement you signed with him and pay the rent on time. You wouldn’t want to rent your premises to someone who does not have a steady income OR someone who is on the verge of going bankrupt. Nor would you want to proceed letting your house to a known defaulter
County Court Judgements - Landlords would obviously want to stay clear of individuals who in the past, have been booked for any frauds or other misdemeanors. This factor is critical not just for the Landlord, but also for those living in the neighbourhood of the property to be leased. Nobody would feel safe having a neighbour with a murky past.
Previous Landlord Reference - Landlords wouldn’t entertain applicants carrying black marks with respect to tenancy issues. They would want to check if the applicant ever had any issues with previous landlords, if/she has ever been served any eviction notices in the past etc.
Employer Tenant Reference- Landlords would like to entertain applications from folks who remain in the healthy employment bracket viz. with respect to their employment and earnings. So a positive feedback from the applicant’s employer is important.

Now, answers to all the above can be achieved using Tenant Screening software. At Lets Safe we have an online tool that provides answers on the above mentioned points.

So basically, it all comes down to what your Tenant Screening software has to say about the applicant you are interested in. If the final report produced by the tool gives an ALL GREEN, on all the above parameters, then the Landlord or Letting Agent may safely firm-up on the tenant and proceed with rest of the formalities.