Credas, identity verification provider to the property market, has launched of its latest duo of products that will help letting agencies reduce the time spent on vetting new tenants and provide a more efficient way of preventing fraud.
Application fraud poses a significant risk to letting agents with previous research conducted by Credas identifying that rogue tenants cost £34,797 in lost rent, legal fees and damage to properties.
By implementing its new vetting and onboarding service, Credas hopes to tackle rising fraud, as the new service allows agents to digitally verify a tenant’s identity, gather references, check Right to Rent status, affordability and guarantor status quickly by inputting the tenant’s details.
Tim Barnett, CEO of Credas Technologies, said: “With demand for rental properties soaring there is evidence that potential tenants are massaging their applications to appear more favourable candidates.
“In areas like London, a resulting few months of missed rent is a significant sum to any landlord and can’t be easily recovered.
“Therefore, letting agents need to ensure that tenants are thoroughly vetted. Bad actors are also posing as property owners and subletting, putting the letting agent at huge risk.
“We are proud of our new product offering that’s easy to use, client branded and has will cut tenant onboarding down to minutes instead of days.”
Furthermore, with the launch of its new landlord KYC service, Credas also hopes to allow agents to safeguard the needs of tenants.
The service provides a compliant deep dive on prospective landlords.
This allows agents to ascertain a client’s true identity and instantly check against PEP lists, sanction lists, disqualified directors information and importantly, verify that the property being rented is actually owned by the person being vetted.
Both new products are white-label and can be branded as per the lettings agent’s own branding.
Barnett added: “Letting agents have a duty of care to their tenants to ensure the property they are renting belongs to their client.
“We provide agents with a robust checking regime for very little cost to protect themselves against rogue landlords and is a great example of how technology can be used to solve real-world problems and drive real efficiencies.”
