Investing in a rental property can go horribly wrong for a landlord if would-be tenants aren't vetted properly and turn out to be late or non-payers, or trash the property or, worst of all, turn out to be professional squatters. "A person wouldn't dream of handing the keys to their car to a stranger, yet they allow their investment flat to be rented to someone without making sure that they've been properly checked out," says Michelle Dickens, MD of TPN, a credit bureau that specialises in vetting tenants for rental properties. "That's mind-boggling to me." A former rental agent, Dickens founded TPN in 2000, as a way of sharing information about delinquent tenants. And it isn't enough for a landlord to pay a rental agent to take care of their property and leave them to get on with it, no questions asked, Dickens says. "It's not uncommon for an agent to tell a landlord that they've done checks when they actually haven't," she warns. "Or for a check to be done on only the person who si...
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