Being a landlord can be a lucrative, hassle-free experience. However, get the wrong tenants for your buy-to-let property, and it can swiftly turn into a nightmare.
The good news is that this situation can be easily avoided, providing you carry out the right tenant checks beforehand. Squires’ letting team conducts the entire screening process on your behalf, ensuring that you’ll end up with a tenant that respects your home and pays the rent on time.
What does an ideal tenant look like?
Before getting started, it’s a good idea to identify who your perfect tenant is. This is useful information for your letting agent to have, as it helps them find the right person for you.
Take some time to consider the following:
- Financial responsibility. Can they be trusted to pay what they owe each month? If they damage something, will they cover the costs? How important is it to you, for example, that they have a permanent job? Would a situation where the rent is shared across several individuals provide more reassurance?
- Character. Tenants come from all walks of life, which is great. However, you may want one that’s happy to communicate openly on important matters, or who has a proven track-record of being respectful of other people’s property.
- Trustworthiness. You’re trusting the tenant with possibly the largest investment of your life. As such, you’ll want someone who can be relied on not to trash your property, or walk away owing six months’ rent.
Screening process
Squires carries out an intensive screening process, with a view to finding a great tenant for your property. Here are some of the things we cover while making checks on prospective renters:
- Right to rent. We’ll check that the tenant can legally rent your residential property.
- Referencing. You’ll want the reassurance that your tenant is employed, has a good rental track-record, and a solid credit history. Our letting team will gather references from previous landlords and employers, and we also collect credit reports. This gives us a good idea of whether they’re reliable and respectful when renting a property.
- Asking questions. We cover the difficult questions that you might not feel comfortable asking. For example, we’ll find out if they gave enough notice when moving out of their previous home, and how long they lived there for. We’ll also ask them for their employment history, and whether they’ve had any problem in the past with getting into debt.
- Checking you’re a good match. Once you’ve told us what you expect from your tenants, we’ll relay this information to them. This establishes the ground-rules right from the start, which leads to a smoother-running working relationship.
Getting the contract right
Squires will also help with creating a contract, which covers you for anything that might go wrong in the future. This is a handy way to limit problems and minimise stress. The contract will be focused on protecting your landlord rights (and of course, the tenant’s), and ensuring that your property is as well cared-for as possible.