To think the process of viewing a house these days is ridiculous?

[inthisworld]

We are looking around for a new rental property as we are not sure where we would buy and not ready at the moment.

I've viewed a couple of places and they ask for heaps of information before you can view the property which stops time wasters and I totally agree with that

However the latest property I have asked to view, I was asked to fill in an 8 question form which I did straight away and was happy to do in terms of are we working etc. Now they have that they want me to answer another 10 question form of in my opinion quite intrusive questions considering I haven't even seen the property let alone want to go for it. Things like address and contact details for our workplaces, details of any student loans being paid, current full address and previous, and phone numbers, any instruments we may play at home and how much we both earn per year.

AIBU to think it's a lot of information to give just to view a property to rent? I would be happy to give all of this should we put an application forward. I guess the landlord just wants to save time but because I'm not comfortable giving my name and address of my home and workplace etc I'm just thinking not to bother seeing it at all. Someone else will be happy to do it I'm sure.

YANBU

But i think the rental market is quite hot at the moment isn't it? Which means a fair few folks will be v happy to get straight on with the paperwork side of things asap.

You should have seen the application form for some of the Estates I worked for. Multi page questionnaires about all sorts of things to even get on the waiting list if a property came up. To their credit, they usually looked for young families who would use the village school. For the National Trust we held interviews and marked people on set criteria about things like knowledge of the National Trust’s values.

YANBU that sounds very intrusive for a viewing.
I guess landlords can afford to be picky at the moment but the questions are silly, especially the one about musical instruments. I can't imagine many people are going to say "yes, I play the drums, trumpet and violin (badly)" on their application form if they actually want to get a viewing.

Are these not just one-offs per agency? I assume filling in the questionnaires once will get you on their general viewing/ booking list and narrow down suitable properties to send you via email/ contact you on the phone straight away?

Wow it was bad enough a few years ago.. although that was more of a problem with a particular letting agent who was just a cow to be honest. Refused to let us view some properties, made us fill out long forms with the same information every time and wouldn't take a deposit. Got sick of her being a bitch and went to a different company, got a house straight away.

It’s to make sure whoever rents it is suitable. If you don’t like it move on. Personally I think it’s fine.

I agree it's a pain in the arse but unfortunately it's the state of the rental market right now. We had to square off against another couple and provide multiple additional responses and justifications about why we would be the best tenants compared to the other interested parties. It went in for days and each time we thought we'd provided enough info we got asked to say more about what made us great tenants. It was like the Apprentice. Awful! But you do what you have to do to secure your family home.

Just to answer some of the questions, I totally understand they can ask what they like and we don't have to oblige.

When we rented years ago it was totally different. This isn't an agency either this is an actual landlord, if it was an agency I wouldn't mind so much as it would save time in the future. I just felt that we're told to be safe with our information and it feels like you have to pour out so much personal info before you have even decided if you want to rent from that particular landlord.

But like others have said I think with how few and far between houses are at the moment it's just how it will be for the foreseeable!

I think most landlords don't want tenants that will later on stop paying rent and decide to sit in the house until all eviction protocols are done and loose out in court fees and rental income loss. Hence the work references etc questions

The other aspect is this is their property they want to make sure their property is looked after.
the musical instrument makes sense if they are then liable for council coming round or police issues regarding noise pollution.

This is what I think could be the rational behind it maybe I might be wayyyyy of base but that's what I would be thinking.

No I agree with you I think you've hit the nail on the head. I've seen programmes where it takes months if not years to get bad tenants out.

I think we're just going to have to suck it up in my situation and start giving the information required or we may never move 🥴