Vet Before You Let

Quite often, the screening process looks something like this: a copy of an ID, three months’ payslips, and a gut feeling after the viewing.

It’s not that landlords don’t care. More often, they simply aren’t aware of what a thorough vetting process should include.

Here’s what it should look like.

Confirming identity is real, not just present

A copied ID document proves someone has an ID document. It doesn’t prove the person standing in front of you is who they claim to be, or that the document itself hasn’t been altered.

Proper identity verification checks that the ID number matches official records. It’s a simple step that closes off an enormous amount of risk before anything else is even considered.

Checking for a criminal record — properly

Not simply asking someone whether they have one.

A verified criminal record check tells you what a person’s actual history is, rather than what they’ve chosen to disclose. This isn’t about assuming guilt. It’s about removing guesswork from a decision that determines who will have legal access to your property for the next year — or perhaps much longer.

Verifying income, not just seeing a number

A payslip can be genuine, or it can be edited in five minutes on a phone.

A proper affordability assessment confirms that the income exists, is consistent, and is sufficient to cover the rent alongside all the other financial commitments that income needs to support.

This is the step that helps prevent the slow, grinding kind of tenancy problem — not deliberate fraud, but someone who simply cannot afford the commitment they’ve made.

Talking to the previous landlord, not just reading a reference letter

Reference letters are often written by the applicant, for the applicant.

A brief conversation with a previous landlord usually reveals the details a letter never will: whether rent was paid on time, whether the property was looked after, and whether any disputes were resolved professionally or simply left behind.

None of this needs to feel like an interrogation.

In fact, most good tenants expect these checks and are often reassured by them. A landlord who takes the time to screen properly is usually someone who will approach the tenancy with the same level of professionalism and fairness.

At Credence, this is exactly the kind of verification we handle for landlords and letting agents — quietly, professionally, and before the lease is signed, not after something has gone wrong.

Verified identity, a real criminal record check, confirmed income, a conversation with the last landlord. That’s the what. But a landlord following the right questions can still get it wrong in a way that has nothing to do with whether their information was accurate — because how screening is done matters just as much as what it uncovers.

Here’s the part most landlords never think about until they’re already in a dispute.

Consent isn’t a courtesy — it’s a requirement

Under South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), a landlord needs a tenant’s clear, signed consent before running background or credit checks on them. This isn’t paperwork for paperwork’s sake — it’s the legal basis for touching someone’s personal information at all. Skipping it, or treating a verbal “sure, go ahead” as sufficient, leaves a landlord without a leg to stand on if the applicant later objects to how their information was handled.

Decide your criteria before you see anyone’s results, not after

It’s tempting to look at each applicant individually and make a judgement call. But without criteria decided in advance — what disqualifies someone, what doesn’t, what counts as a dealbreaker versus a minor concern — every decision ends up being made on a shifting, unspoken standard. That’s not just inconsistent, it’s exactly the kind of thing that looks like unfair treatment if it’s ever questioned, even when the landlord’s intentions were perfectly reasonable.

Apply it the same way, every time, and write it down

Two applicants, judged against the identical standard, with a record of how each one measured up. That’s what turns “we had a bad feeling” into something a landlord can actually stand behind. It doesn’t need to be complicated — a simple scorecard against the landlord’s own published criteria is enough. What matters is that it exists, and that it’s applied consistently rather than adjusted case by case.

Why this matters even when nothing goes wrong

Most tenancies never end in a dispute. But the ones that do tend to hinge less on whether the landlord’s suspicion was correct, and more on whether the landlord can show their process was fair and consistent. A landlord who can point to written consent, published criteria, and a documented decision is in a completely different position than one who can only say “it didn’t feel right.”

Where this leaves Credence’s role — and where it doesn’t

Consent is something we build into every check we run — it’s secured before any screening begins, as it should be. What Credence can’t do is set a landlord’s criteria for them; that’s a decision specific to each landlord’s own standards, property, and circumstances. What we can do is make sure landlords understand this piece exists at all, and roughly what a defensible process looks like, so the same diligence that goes into checking a tenant also goes into how that check is handled.

Good screening isn’t just accurate. It’s defensible.

Three parts of this series was spent talking to landlords — what to check, how to check it, why consistency matters. But a lease has two signatures on it, and only one side has been doing the vetting.

Renting a property is easy to treat as a transaction: find a place, like it enough, sign, move in. But a lease is a relationship, often for a year or more, with people who will have real power over your deposit, your living conditions, and how disputes get handled if something goes wrong. That relationship deserves the same scrutiny landlords are being asked to apply to tenants — not because every landlord or agent is a problem, but because it’s just as reasonable for a tenant to check who they’re trusting.

The agent isn’t a neutral referee

It’s easy to assume a letting agent is simply administering the process fairly between two parties. In practice, the agent is usually appointed and paid by the landlord — which doesn’t automatically make them unfair, but it does mean their incentives sit closer to the property owner’s side than the tenant’s. They’re often the ones deciding whether the property “passes” a move-out inspection, and they typically hold the deposit in the interim. A tenant who assumes the agent is impartial by default may be surprised when a dispute doesn’t go the way they expected.

Vetting goes both ways

Letting agents and rental agents in South Africa are required to hold a valid Fidelity Fund Certificate, renewed annually with the PPRA. Tenants can check this directly on the PPRA’s FFC portal, using the firm’s reference number — usually easy to find, since it’s required to appear on the agency’s official stationery. It’s a small step most tenants never think to take, and one that can flag a problem before it becomes one.

Know where you can turn if something goes wrong

The Rental Housing Tribunal can rule on disputes like unpaid deposits, unfair practices, and unlawful lockouts, and a Tribunal ruling carries the same legal weight as a Magistrate’s Court judgment. What’s worth knowing upfront, though, is that a ruling in your favour isn’t the same as being paid — if the other party doesn’t comply voluntarily, enforcing that ruling is still a separate step. It’s a real avenue for recourse, just not an instant one, and knowing that going in helps set realistic expectations rather than relying on it as a safety net that resolves things automatically.

Read the lease—all of it

Not the version someone summarises for you in the viewing. What counts as fair wear and tear, how the deposit is calculated at move-out, notice periods, who’s responsible for which repairs — these details matter far more once there’s a disagreement than they ever do on signing day, and by then it’s too late to negotiate them.

Due diligence isn’t distrust 

A landlord vetting a tenant isn’t suspicion—it’s due diligence. And the same applies to the tenant. A good landlord or agent expects it, and generally has nothing to hide from it. The point was never that one side deserves scrutiny and the other doesn’t — it’s that entering any long-term agreement blind, on either side, is where problems tend to start.

That’s really what this whole series has been about: not distrust, but knowing exactly who you’re entering an agreement with, before you sign — whichever side of the lease you’re on.