References - should I have to pay?

[Nettlerash]

We are in the process of looking for a place to rent and would like some advice.

My husband,I and my young daughter will be living in the property but my husband will be paying for it solely as I am not working (I look after our daughter at home)
In the past agents have wavered the fees for 2 checks to be done and have just taken referencing fees for my husband who would be paying the rent.

This certain agent has asked for £85 each for referencing fees. My question is what checks exactly do you need from me if I am not working and is it really necessary?
I understand they might want to contact our previous landlord - thats fine with us but surely they would do that anyway on my husbands check.

We are also landlords ourselves so understand both sides. We also have a married couple in our house where the wife does not work and I am pretty sure they only did checks on him to make sure he could pay the rent.

Ridiculous if there is only one 'earner' to have 2 checks unless they do a police check as well I suppose?!

Thanks chippingin. Thats what we thought. We actually told them this morning that we thought this and they wont budge so I think we will opt out of this one.

sounds like just a fee to improve their profitability. Probably isn't even legal.

I bet you won't get a refund if the tenancy falls through. How many phone calls would you be willing to make for £85?

If you're both on the tenancy agreement I would expect both of you to be checked. Even if you weren't on the agreement, I would want to know that you hadn't left a trail of debts in your name in previous addresses.

#85 is a lot for credit checks though.

Yes but I don't really see the point of a credit check on myself anyway if it's not me who is financially responsible. If that were the case they would just ask for a gaurantor who would be my husband anyway!

If you had a poor credit scoring and had racked up loads of debt the you would expect DH to pay for them as you have no income. Seems entirely reasonable.

I used to work as a letting agent, and never did checks on SAHM, it seemed unnecessary. As long as your husband can afford to pay rent, and you have good references from previous landlords, I do not see the problem. If you were in debt, then your husband would have most likely paid the rent late to previous landlord at some point.

I recall on three occasions knowing that the prospective tenants had declared themselves bankrupt (various reasons failed business, mother not allowing father access to children and expensive legal costs/divorce); but that this was over three years ago. As the bankruptcy had been discharged it never came up on any of the credit checks.

On two out of three occasions I proceeded with letting to couples who had been bankrupt, and both times they were excellent tenants. Both sets of tenants had well paid jobs at the time, and had not stretched themselves with the rent.

Thanks shounotbehere. Very annoyingly we decided against that one and went to another agent,found a property and has charge us £150 for ONE reference!!

charged*