How do you rent a house while you are you still living in another country.

[mykidsmyworld]

We want to move to Manchester, found a house we like but the agency says we may not get the house since they can't do a credit check … Even when we are willing to pay up 4 months in advance (excluding the 1 month deposit).

How do people that relocate overcome this?

Have they said what they would accept? Can you ask them? The minimum AST period is 6 months therefore 6 months' rent upfront plus a UK-based guarantor could well be the requirement.

If you are moving with work/for a job then can the new employer assist?

They won't accept upfront as long as they can't check my credit. But he said he will see if he can do international credit check and ring me back. I am not moving with work either.
Just wondering what my next option will be. Certainly people move to the UK and are able to rent a house…

Have a look in the moving back to UK section on britishexpats.com/forum/ most seem to pay 6 months up front, but I'm not sure how they find the houses. You'll have to ask them.

Thank you SquinkiesRule for the link.

We moved back to UK after living abroad. It was an absolute PITA. I couldn't get a mobile phone contract never mind a mortgage.

It took over 2 years before we could get a credit card, and none of the companies would do an international credit check. We offered.

We moved in with my parents for a few months first, got on the electoral role and started building up credit history. We switched my parents' gas and electric direct debits into my name and were advised to buy a car on credit, which was tricky but we managed in the end.

I hope the rental agency can sort something out.

We are currently in the process of moving back to the UK. Luckily we had left some UK accounts active including credit cards, so they had no trouble with a UK credit check. Did you leave any banking relationships open ?

We got a mortgage this summer with no trouble based on a UK credit score, and they wanted to look at our overseas bank transactions (we had to translate statements), and our overseas credit card agreements.

Back in 2002 we also moved back to the UK, and then - because we were not employed - we had to pay 6 months rent up front.

yy, Rumpler. If we ever move abroad again, I'll be leaving UK accounts, and using them occasionally. I wish I'd known beforehand!

MmeLindor how did you cope within the 2 years before you settled in?
Beats me why they will refuse international credit check considering the good network available these days.

No rumpler, unfortunately I had one with HSBC while I was a student at Sheffield but I think I closed it, and that was about 6 years ago.

Another thing, 6 other families are interested in the property, how do they decide who gets the house where two or more declares interest?

We left our UK accounts open too and rented a place/signed the lease from abroad - sorry you are struggling OP - sounds painful.

I still had a German credit card, but it kept getting blocked when I bought things here, and they thought it looked suspicious! I had a Visa Debit card, which you can use most places to shop online.

I paid for everything with direct debit, as that apparently helps build a credit rating. Club cards with Tesco - they gave me a credit card when my bank was still not willing. Even though we had a mortgage with them!