The events of the past 18 months have delt a devastating socio-economic impact on private renters in the UK, with an estimated 840,000 building up arrears as a result of covid. As a direct result of this, 56% of landlords lost rental income during the pandemic.
Compounding this increased cost and risk of being a landlord in today's market is the softening of eviction regulations and virtually no consequences for fraudulent rental applications - fuelling a rise in tenant fraud.
According to the NRLA, 11% of renters are currently unemployed - double the UK unemployment rate of 4.8% - and as many as 840,000 private renters in England have built up arrears since the pandemic started in March 2020, a trend significantly impacting landlords.
More than half (56%) have lost rental income as a result of the pandemic, and 2.2% of landlords with buy to let mortgages are in arrears (compared to just 0.3% of homeowners) with the number in serious arrears up 8% on last year.
The rising unemployment and affordability amongst renters are also impacting the number of fraudulent applications. There was a 71% increase in the number of fraudulent applications between the second half of 2020 and the first half of 2021 meaning that one in 50 rental applications are now fraudulent, rising to one in 20 in London.
Not only are landlords having to deal with the financial consequences of fraudulent applications - legal costs and lost rent means each fraudulent tenant costs more than £30,000 - but the tenant themselves is at very little risk.
At Accommodation.co.uk, we have access to the latest verification technology, fraud detection tests, behavioural analysis, and financial algorithms, as well as Open Banking data, so that we accurately and safely facilitate tenant referencing to approve legitimate tenants and prevent our landlords from losing thousands from fraudulent activity.
Book a call with a member of the team today to find out more about our tenant referencing and how we can secure your next tenant.