Brooke-Cowden
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10 Posts
I requested two previous landlord references from the letting agent. I was explicit that these were very important to us.
Unfortunately I have inherited a tenant who for whatever reason is not paying on time. About 5 months of this now. Basically rotten apples. Lies, fob offs etc.
Naturally my focus turned to these landlord references. Our letting agent provided us a (now verified) reference from one landlord and then informed us they went from there to another address/landlord which was the tenants mate/family. We have with some digging found out that the chronology is incorrect and there was another landlord/address in between which was not disclosed. There is a gap of about 1-2 years in the chronology. So the letting agent, in writing has provided us an incomplete, incorrect rental chronology/landlord references which has informed our decision to take on the tenant: "...They went on to stay at their friends place in xxxx as their friend moved to xxxx and is now coming back to London…” I am open that they have either cherry picked two good references and not looked into the missing one or they have been misled by the tenant. We could have found that they were a bad tenant with the missing penultimate landlord reference. Obviously I am trying to keep the agent onside in sorting this mess out though I have asked for an explanation and asked for the missing landlord details (not heard back at the time of writing). Could the agent wiggle out out of this by saying "oh I just provided you two references..." when in their email they have mislead us on the chronolgy/landlord references. Aside from that we do now know that a reference from a friend or family can be a flag. I know its all a bit late now but any thoughts as to whether I should escalate matters against my agent?
