Referencing Criteria

Canopy Referencing 

This article will cover what we accept in order to verify the various sections of a tenants RentPassport™. 

When a tenant is completing their RentPassport™ they have 3 main sections to complete: 

• Credit check
• Income and rent verification
• Rental preferences

If you request full screening they also have to complete:

• Landlord reference
• Employer reference

Credit check
For a tenant to complete their Credit Check they need to input their full legal name, date of birth, phone number and full address history. 

We are powered through Experian who ask for at least 3 years of addresses to ensure they have the most accurate credit profile. 

Users have two options when verifying their income and rent payments:

1. Open banking: 
The user connects with their bank account and quickly and securely verify income and rent.
They can add their bank account and select their payments from the transactions that are listed.

2. Manual verification:
Users can do this by uploading the relevant documents and manually inputting their employment type, employer, and annual salary for income.
For rent they input their landlord/agents name and the rent amount. 

Please see below a list of  the documents we accept to verify income depending on the employment status: 

PAYE Employment 

• 3 months consecutive most recent payslips if they are paid monthly
• 4 weeks  consecutive most recent payslips if they are paid weekly
• 3 months consecutive most recent payslips if they are paid bi-weekly
• Employment Contract and offer letter (together with recent payslip if the role has started)

Self Employment 

• Accountant Signed Reference Letter (Acceptable with a minimum of 6 months of accounts to be considered) We would need to validate the information provided to our satisfaction
• Most recent completed tax return
• SA302

As directors/partners are classed as employees of their company we can obtain an employer reference for them.

Pension 

• Latest P60
• Latest state pension annual statement
• 3 months consecutive most recent pension payslips
• Most recent completed tax return
• SA302
• Accountant Signed Reference Letter. We would need to validate the information provided to our satisfaction

Benefits 

• Entitlement/award letter confirming the benefit due to be received (dated within 3 months) accompanied with proof of latest payment (if applicable)
• Entitlement/award letter confirming the benefit income received over the latest financial year or the provisional payments for the current financial year
• Latest 3 months’ fully itemised bank statements showing the benefit payments.
• For Universal credit, we also accept the latest 3 months’ pay statements

Unemployed/Zero Income 

• A renter who is unemployed or has no income will still be able to complete their income section in the RentPassport by selecting the correct option and entering 0 in annual salary. Please ensure you request  a guarantor if needed.

Scholarship/Bursary/Sponsorship

• Award letter dated within the last year confirming the annual amount. (If the award letter is older than a year, due to being issued at the start of a course which is longer than a year, we obtain proof of the latest payments to ensure the scholarship is still ongoing)
  
• Signed Reference Letter from the relevant department within the university or awarding body.  
• Signed Reference Letter from the sponsoring embassy

We only accept the maintenance element of the award only, not payments towards the tuition fees.

Rent Payments 

We can only verify rent payments of tenants who have been paying via bank transfer or direct debit, in order to verify this they will need to provide: 

• 3 most recent consecutive months of fully itemised bank statements.