Hi I am thinking of renting out my house and would like to credit check potential tennants and would love any advise. I have been having a look online and found a website called tennantverify who will do checks for £33 each person. Are these worthwhile or could anyone please recommend a company that they have used to check out potential tennants. Another option i thought of was to ask the potential tennants to provide expedia checks as I believe that that you can only do these for yourself?

Landlords out there - what do you do? thanks in advance

Expedia is a travel site, you need Experian or Equifax :)

£33 seems a bit steep, it's £4.99 to check your own credit on the latter two.

oooops!! thats what i meant, thinking of hols too much!

I dont think that you are able to do checks with experian on behalf of someone else though as I did one on myself a while ago?

Expedia is a travel site, you need Experian or Equifax :)

£33 seems a bit steep, it's £4.99 to check your own credit on the latter two.

or £2 by convential postal service

Snail mail? The horror! :D

But yep, far as I know you can only check your own.

I used to work in an industry that credit checked people a lot and we had a contract with Experian because we used them daily. The reports were £2 each but we paid an annual subscription, they will charge you more if you only want one report, not sure how much though. Are you using a letting agent? Perhaps they have facilities to check them out for you.

An article in the Guardian last Saturday showed how credit checks by companies don't reveal everything. A company that provides this service does not have access to all details - they can only access what is in the public domain (includes IVAs and county court judgements) but importantly, it doesn't show any amounts overdue on a credit card, which would be a key indicator.

If I was doing this I would insist that the leasee provides their own report. Unless they've deliberatly tried to forge it, you'll see much more than what you will get from using a private company. And they shouldn't object - as anyone going through a letting agency has to pay this via the agency fee, therefore you are saving them money. You're asking them to fork out £4.99 for experian (maybe slightly higher for exquifax). For a complete picture you would need to see both, but most banks etc only use one or the other when assessing people for credit so that should be sufficient for your needs too.