Van Mildert

Van Mildert For Landlords

Van Mildert prides itself on aiming to be the best tenant referencing company for you. When you’re letting a property it is vital that you know your tenants are in stable employment (or have another means to pay the rent consistently every month), that they have behaved appropriately in their previous tenancy/tenancies, and that there’s nothing suspicious or alarming that you need to know about them.rent guarantee insurance

Van Mildert works on behalf of your letting agent to obtain a variety of reference for your prospective tenants – from a comprehensive credit report, employment reference, previous landlord reference, verified bank statements and so forth. From all of this information, we will provide your agent with a judgement on whether the tenant is likely to pay the rent on time on-going, and whether they are likely to cause a problem of any kind.

Tenant referencing ensures you chose the right tenant from the outset and eliminates future hassle and stress that could be caused if an unreliable tenant was to be selected. Van Mildert works to manage your tenancies, thus reducing the risk of rental arrears or damage to your property. With extensive experience in the field, we aim to give you peace of mind when letting your property so let’s work together to protect your properties and improve your profitability.

What Do Our Tenant Referencing Systems Check For?

Employment And Income Details

Whether your prospective tenant is employed, contracted, self-employed, retired or claiming benefits, we’ll verify their income and confirm the terms of their employment where applicable. For instance, by ensuring they aren’t coming to the end of their contract or a probation/trial period. By making these checks via our tenant referencing forms we will then be able to advise your letting agents as to whether or not the tenant will be able to consistently afford the rental fee.

Credit, Fraud And CCJ Checking

Our tenant referencing services also check the financial security and previous creditworthiness of your potential tenant. In order to do so, we run a series of thorough credit history checks which scan and expose any court judgements, bankruptcies, regular missed payments or other alarming facts that may come to light about a potential tenant.

Previous Landlords

Where the tenant has been living in rented accommodation previously, we’ll have frank discussions with their previous landlord(s) to find out if the rent was always paid on time and whether the property was maintained acceptably. This is often the most important stage of the process as it can reveal a whole host of problems which you’d like to know about before committing to a tenancy.

Right to check rentBy referencing your prospective tenants through Van Mildert, your letting agent is exhibiting a high level of professional diligence and care and is ensuring that you have the best possible chance of enjoying a safe, predictable tenancy with your tenants.

This is a process which no reputable agent should operate without, and if in doubt you should ask your agent if they will be obtaining a comprehensive reference on your prospective tenants from Van Mildert Landlord & Tenant Protection.

Van Mildert For Tenants

How It Works

If you’re applying to move into a new rented home, most responsible letting agents will order a reference check on you. This is nothing to worry about — it’s the agent’s job to perform some basic checks to make sure you’re not using a fraudulent identity and that you’re roughly in the right area financially to pay the rent on time.

This is important to the agent as they need to offer to the landlord only tenants who are likely to cause no problems.

Around 95% of reference checks come back totally fine. You’ll need to fill in a form and disclose a range of information, for example previous addresses and employment details, but it shouldn’t take long and generally there’s nothing to worry about.

The process can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days, but we normally aim for about a 24 hour turnaround.

Once you’ve filled in your application form we will perform a range of checks including verifying your employment (where applicable), retrieving your credit score, etc. Once we’ve collected all of this information, assuming everything checks out okay, we’ll send a positive result back to your letting agent and they can start the process of moving you in to your new property.

Will I Pass

The short answer is — probably. Over 95% of reference checks come back fine.
The most common reasons for prospective applicants failing referencing is low income, a negative landlord reference or poor credit history which may have led to a CCJ, Bankruptcy or IVA.

In this day and age, it’s sensible practice for everybody to keep an eye on their own credit history, just in case mistakes crop up or unpaid bills you don’t know about are holding you back. You can do this via our credit checking partner, Equifax, here. We’ll also make a practical assessment of your finances taking into account any wages, savings, benefits, grants etc which you may have.

Depending on the exact circumstances the formula can vary, but as a rule of thumb, tenants must have either a total monthly income of at least 2.5x the monthly rent, or savings equal to 2.5x the annual rent, or a combination of both.

Depending on your circumstances credit history problems can often be resolved by naming a guarantor. If there’s a problem with your credit history we’ll call you and discuss your options and the possibility of a guarantor.

For guarantors, the same formula applies, but guarantors must make 3x the rent, as they have their own living costs to cover.

Van Mildert For Guarantors

Sometimes, for a number of reasons, it may be necessary for a tenant to have a guarantor. Essentially, this means a second person signs the tenancy agreement as a form of insurance — in the event of the tenant failing to pay the rent, the guarantor is obligated to step in.

This provides peace of mind to the letting agent and landlord in circumstances where the tenant’s employment may be in jeopardy, their credit history is poor or for any other reason it seems more likely than normal that the tenant may not keep up rent payments.

As a guarantor, you will need to pass a reference check. The guarantor wouldn’t be worth much as a form of insurance if they themselves were unemployed or not financially able to support the rent.

As such all guarantors need to be referenced to verify that they’re financially suitable to stand as a guarantor.

It’s a simple process and doesn’t usually take more than 10 minutes of your time. In 95% of cases there’s nothing to worry about.

In the vast majority of cases the guarantor in a tenancy actually has to do nothing.

The guarantor is there as a form of insurance to provide peace of mind to the landlord and letting agent. In the unlikely event that the tenant ceases to pay the rent, the guarantor would be legally liable to pay in their place.

Although this is very rarely necessary, it is non the less a fairly serious legal commitment from the guarantor, and should not be taken lightly.