The majority of private landlords are not using available resources to determine the risk profile of prospective tenants. This presents a major risk to the insurers of these landlords.
Getting the tenant application process right is a pivotal moment for private landlords. We all know that it’s much easier to reject a troublesome tenant upon application than remove one once they’re in a property. During this brief window of time we can take a good look at an individual’s character and economic situation prior to entering into a binding financial relationship.
The past few years have seen an explosion in the amount of signal intelligence available for risk assessment, yet private landlords continue to use decades-old processes of verbal and written references to screen prospective tenants. Anyone with a stake in making accurate, timely and predictive risk judgements should be employing all available tools to gain an edge in the current data rich environment.
Private landlords are missing a trick by failing to conduct what many property industry experts consider minimal due diligence before taking on a new tenant. TINZ, operator of New Zealand’s largest tenancy database, offers a comprehensive suite of tenancy checking products spanning everything from court judgements and outstanding debts to social media and global databases. The benefits of swift, comprehensive and up-to-date tenancy checks are clear, with one in five TINZ tenancy applications returning ‘bad’ character assessments. Failing to conduct adequate checks is a luxury most landlords can ill afford.
Brokers can play a key role in promoting the benefits of TINZ to private landlords, while mutually adding value to their own core offering and reducing risk. We encourage you to have a conversation with clients and ask them if they can answer “yes” to the following:
Do they use all available data sources to ensure they know the risk profile of a prospective tenant?
Do current checks include the following:
• Tenancy debt collection data from debt collectors
• Current Home Ownership records
• Credit check
• Tenancy Risk Score
• Driver's licence verification
• Passport verification
• Personal Property and Securities Register
• Social media
• International as well as local databases
• Court judgements
• Debt collection databases
• Criminal record and parole board checks
• Print and online media outlets
• Companies office for director, shareholder and disqualified
or banned directors
• Obituaries
If they answer “no” to any of the above they are exposing themselves, and by extension your business, to unnecessary risk and should consider using TINZ.
by Tenancy Information NZ
