Tenant Screening for Professional HMOs & Buy to Lets

Tenant Screening for Professional HMOs & Buy to Lets

As we are managing our own & investors whom we sell Professional HMOs and buy to lets, tenant screening is paramount. People’s behaviours in many cases do not change. When we have a prospective tenant for either our Professional HMOs or buy to let we run a background check. In many cases CCJs come up. We look to investigate the amount and reason. Sometimes there can be an oversight or sometimes a glaring issue. We do not want to simply take an additional deposit. We would look for a guarantor. We just had this exact case and the prospective brother did not want to guarantee his sister. Talk about a red flag!

We look for job stability, ties in the area, and even check their facebook page. Can you imagine you see your perspective tenant either drunk or doing other non conducive activities & you wanting to rent to them. We treat our tenants with the utmost of respect. We just got a text from a gent who is leaving after a couple years, thanking us for being so honourable.

The key is fair and firm. Late payments are not acceptable. However during the holidays we did work with several tenants who asked for some help. This built mutual trust.

Do not simply chase properties because they are cheap. Refurbishment timelines, costs, overages and management are some of the key issues of property success.