Tenant referencing scheme

What is tenant referencing?

The tenant referencing scheme aims to help landlords find suitable tenants.

This free scheme allows the council to check basic information about tenants and highlight any issues landlords should be aware of before taking on a new tenant. This includes checking on credit and debt history, criminal activity, anti-social behaviour or nuisance and tenancy breaches or refusals.

Aims of the scheme:

• To make it easier for landlords to find suitable tenants;
• To ensure tenants in the district (with a poor reference) are suitably housed;
• To support tenants and landlords and help prevent unnecessary evictions.

Benefits for landlords:

• The scheme will help you meet selective licence conditions if you let a property within the designated area (see www.thanet.gov.uk/housing for more information);
• Reliable information is gathered by Thanet District Council and Kent Police;
• Indicates if support is available for the tenant to help deal with any issues raised, such as debt;
• A quick and reliable way to provide a reference for a tenant;
• Provides a card with a photograph of the tenant;
• No need to chase previous landlords for potentially unreliable references;
• Reassurance that the council will assist in tenancy support issues if required;
• Confidence that a tenant who holds a card has had reliable checks made on them;
• Support if a tenant begins to cause a problem following a tenancy being issued;
• Ability to ask for more information from the scheme when a card is presented.

 Landlords are encouraged to:

• Introduce tenants to the scheme;
• Request the application form from Thanet District Council to give to prospective tenants;
• Contact the council immediately if there is a problem with the tenant so records can be updated;
• Provide honest feedback about a tenant when asked through the scheme;
• Either use this scheme for referencing or provide alternative suitable references.

Tenants will receive a card, which is credit card sized, showing four boxes. Each box represents a category:

1. Credit/debt history
2. Criminal activity
3. Anti-social behaviour/nuisance
4. Tenancy breach/refusals

Each box is coloured using a traffic light approach – green, amber or red.

Please contact the Housing Regeneration Team at Thanet District Council to request an application forms for your tenants.