How to reference a tenant properly

Tenant referencing is the last point at which a letting is cheap to fix. Once the tenancy has started, your options have narrowed a great deal, because the Renters' Rights Act removed Section 21 on 1 May 2026 and possession now runs through the revised Section 8 grounds, with four months' notice on many of them and three months' rent owed before the arrears ground gets you a possession order. That is the context every reference should be read in. A weak applicant is no longer a problem you can quietly end in six months.

A full reference has six parts. Identity. Right to rent. Affordability measured against the actual rent on this property. Employment or income verification. A previous landlord reference. Credit and adverse data. Most landlords do four of those properly and wave at the other two.

Identity, and why it comes first

You want to know that the person applying is the person who will live there, and that the name on the tenancy agreement matches the name on the documents you have seen. Photographic identification, checked in person or by video with the original in the applicant's hand, plus something that ties them to their current address.

This matters more than it sounds. Sublet and fraud cases almost always trace back to an identity step that was skipped because the applicant seemed fine. Take copies. Date them. Keep them.

Right to rent is a separate legal check

Right to rent is not part of referencing and should not be folded into it. It is a statutory duty, it applies to every occupier aged 18 or over whether or not they are named on the agreement, and it has to be done before the tenancy begins. Where someone has limited leave to remain, the check must fall in the 28 days before the tenancy starts.

The part landlords get wrong is selectivity. It is against the law to check only the people you think might not be British citizens. Everyone gets checked, every time, including the applicant with a local accent and a payslip from a firm you have heard of. The government guidance on checking a tenant's right to rent documents sets out the acceptable document lists and the share code route. We have written separately about how right to rent checks work in practice, including the exemptions for student halls, care homes and leases of seven years or more.

Affordability, measured properly

Eyeballing a payslip is not an affordability assessment. Take the net monthly figure after tax, national insurance, pension and student loan, then set it against the rent for this property, not a typical rent for the area. Referencing providers apply an income multiple to the gross figure, which is a reasonable screen, but the multiple was designed for a national average and it does not know that your property has solid walls and an old boiler.

Where the applicant is self employed, you want two or three years of accounts or tax returns and, ideally, bank statements. Where income comes from more than one source, assess each source separately and ask how stable it is. A fixed term contract ending in four months is a fact you want before the tenancy, not after.

If affordability is genuinely marginal, the historic workaround was to ask for several months' rent in advance. That route has closed. Rent in advance cannot be requested, encouraged or accepted before the tenancy agreement is signed. The answer to a marginal applicant now is a guarantor or a decline, not a large payment up front.

Verify the employer independently

An employer reference returned by email from an address the applicant supplied is worth very little. Find the company yourself. Companies House, the firm's own website, a main switchboard number you sourced rather than one you were given. Then ring and ask for HR or the line manager by name.

Confirm the job title, the start date, whether the role is permanent, whether the applicant is inside a probationary period, and the gross salary. Ask whether anyone has given notice. It is a two minute call and it catches the small number of applications where the referee is a friend with a printer.

Speak to the previous landlord, not just the current one

This is the check most landlords skip, and it is the one that tells you most. A current landlord who wants the tenant gone has an obvious reason to write a warm reference. A previous landlord has no such incentive, because the tenancy has ended and the deposit has been settled.

Ask both. From the previous landlord you want: how long the tenancy ran, whether rent arrived on time and in full, whether there were deposit deductions and what for, whether there were complaints from neighbours or the council, and the plain question of whether they would let to that tenant again. Ask how the property was left.

Verify who you are speaking to. A quick Land Registry title check on the previous address costs very little and confirms the person answering actually owned the place. If an applicant cannot or will not give a previous landlord, that is information too, though not on its own a reason to decline. First time renters exist and are often excellent tenants.

Credit checks and adverse data

A credit check tells you about county court judgments, bankruptcies, individual voluntary arrangements and the electoral roll history that either supports or contradicts the address history you have been given. Run it with consent, in writing, and tell the applicant what you are running and why.

Read the result rather than scoring it. A satisfied CCJ from four years ago after a business failure is a different thing from three unsatisfied judgments in the last eighteen months. Ask the applicant about anything adverse before you decide. Some of the best tenancies we have set up involved an applicant who explained a bad two years honestly and then paid on the first of every month for the next five.

Guarantors: when to ask and what makes one worth having

Ask for a guarantor when affordability is marginal, when income is new or irregular, when the applicant is a student or a first time renter with no rental history, or when the previous landlord reference raised something you can live with but would rather be covered on.

A guarantee is only worth what the guarantor is worth. Reference the guarantor to the same standard as the tenant: identity, income, credit, and homeowner status where possible. A guarantor living in the same household, or one whose own income barely covers their own outgoings, is decoration.

The agreement itself has to be right. It should be a deed, properly executed and witnessed, it should name the obligations covered, and it needs to survive the fact that tenancies are now periodic and roll on with no end date rather than ending at a fixed term. Guarantee wording drafted for the old assured shorthold model may not do what you think it does. That is a question for a solicitor, not for us and not for a template you found online.

What tenant referencing cannot tell you

It is backward looking. It reports what has already happened to someone's finances and what previous landlords observed. It cannot tell you that the applicant will be made redundant in March, that a relationship will end, or that the person will keep the garden tidy. Redundancy and separation cause a large share of arrears and neither shows up in a reference.

It also cannot tell you how someone will behave. Antisocial behaviour, hoarding and unauthorised occupants rarely appear in a file. Some landlords buy rent guarantee insurance from an insurer or broker to cover the arrears risk, which is a normal market product and worth understanding before you rely on it. Read the conditions, because most policies require full referencing to a defined standard before they will pay, and a reference you cut short can void the cover you thought you had.

Selection criteria have to be about affordability and conduct

The Renters' Rights Act prohibits discrimination against applicants because they receive benefits or because they have children. That is not a marketing rule about the wording of an advert. It applies to how you select between applicants.

So write your criteria down before you advertise, apply them to everyone, and keep them tied to affordability and conduct: verified income from any lawful source against the rent, a satisfactory previous landlord reference, no unresolved adverse credit, right to rent evidenced. Benefit income is income and must be assessed as such. Rental bidding is banned as well, so you cannot encourage or accept offers above the advertised rent, which means the advertised figure has to be the figure you actually want. The government overview of the Renters' Rights Act for landlords covers both points.

Keep a short written note of why you chose the applicant you chose. If a decision is ever questioned, a contemporaneous note against stated criteria is a far better answer than a recollection.

Where to go from here

Tenant referencing is slow work done properly and it is the part landlords most often shorten when a property has been empty for three weeks. If you would rather not make those calls yourself, our let only and tenant find service in Doncaster covers marketing, referencing and the paperwork to move in, and full property management across Doncaster, Rotherham, Sheffield and Barnsley carries it on through the tenancy. Both sit under one all in fee with no setup, renewal or admin charges, set out on our fees page. We are Propertymark members with Client Money Protection C0142235, which is worth checking for any agent handling your applicant's money. Give us a ring on 01302 244104 if you want to talk through a specific application.