I've just read a really interesting article by Warren Lewis from Property Reporter that should be of significant interest to Landlords regarding the level of references undertaken by agents when submitting tenants to a property.
What I find interesting, and yet deeply saddening, is that this is rife throughout the industry - the agent in this instance clearly believes that they can just sit back and let a third party company do all of the checks and they needn't lift a finger, but the comedy in all of this is that the agent is the responsible party who is supposedly a professional offering an often expensive service to landlords.
Is your letting agent checking your tenants thoroughly, or will YOU be left with an £8000 bill and a court case to fight? Don't be the loser, use somebody who does it properly - if not, you've only got yourself to blame for not checking out the agent you picked.
Bigger isn't always better, in fact it almost always guarantees that the jobsworth handling your property won't have the experience, knowledge or care enough to thoroughly check things with attention to detail to filter out dodgy tenants who know their way around the system.
