Tenant vetting service

Our Private Sector Housing Team offers a tenant vetting service for landlords with properties in the selective landlord licensing areas.

The vetting service helps to assess the suitability of future tenants and contributes towards neighbourhood improvements such as preventing antisocial behaviour and crime. The service also supports landlords to comply with their licensing conditions. 

The licence holder must obtain valid references and relevant checks for all persons who wish to occupy the property before starting any new tenancy, licence, or other form of agreement to occupy. The reference must allow the licence holder to make an informed decision regarding their suitability to occupy. References should include details of previous and recent housing history. Evidence of these references and checks must be made available to the council upon request.

We offer licence holders two vettings per year per property, based on the principle that on average there will be no more than two tenancies per year. The service operates on the understanding that a licence holder will only ask us to vet a potential tenant when they have done their own checks of the applicant's Right to Rent, meeting them in person to check original identification, affordability and previous housing history.

What tenant vetting involves

We check the applicant's history and use this information to determine the outcome of the application. We look at what kind of tenant they have been in the past and consider if this behaviour could affect a proposed new tenancy or the surrounding community.

What we need from the applicant

All household members aged over 18 will need to complete a vetting form. When the main applicant submits their form, a copy of the form is immediately emailed to the other household members they have told us about. The other household members will need to complete their forms within 10 working days. We will close incomplete applications after this time. For data security reasons, the main applicant should provide a different email address for each household member.

Within the vetting form, applicants must upload two forms of identification and consent to us contacting other organisations about their history of property/tenancy management, rent arrears, antisocial behaviour and criminal offences. The organisations we contact could include current and previous landlords, the probation service, housing providers, local authorities, social services, Home Office and the police.

Any information we receive will be held in the strictest confidence and managed in line with data protection. We will only share the information if it is subject to required disclosure or if we need to share it with other organisations for the purpose of preventing and detecting fraud and protecting public funds.

Tenant vetting form

How long it takes

After we receive a completed form, we will give an outcome as soon as possible. If for any reason we have not reached a decision within 14 days we will contact the applicant to tell them why.

Potential outcomes

Outcomes are graded into the following categories:

The outcome of the vetting is valid for six months from issue. We will retain the data for two years.

Telling the applicant and licence holder the outcome

We will write to both parties at the addresses provided on the application form, with an outcome of Category A, B, C or D (see table above). We will offer further advice if necessary and tell the applicant why we reached this decision. We may also be able to signpost them to support with issues which may be contributing factors to the vetting application outcome (for example debt, drugs, alcohol, tenant-related issues). We may need to hold a meeting between the prospective tenant, potential landlord and an officer from Gateshead Council to discuss the vetting outcome. The applicant would have to sign the disclosure before this could take place.

The decision to grant a tenancy

Tenant vetting allows the licence holder to make an informed choice about whether a prospective tenant is suitable for the property and the neighbourhood. 

The decision to grant a tenancy lies with the licence holder and NOT Gateshead Council.