Tenancy fraud is on the rise. This year, we've identified an average of 150 cases of fraud every day, up from 110 a day in 2021 – representing a 36% increase in just over a year.
Tenancy fraud is on the rise. This year, we've identified an average of 150 cases of fraud every day, up from 110 a day in 2021 – representing a 36% increase in just over a year.
A separate survey by HomeLet found that over half of UK, landlords still pay off a BTL mortgage and rely on receiving their monthly rental income to cover the mortgage costs. Many landlords rely on rental income to support their lifestyle and families.
Fraudsters are constantly getting smarter and finding new, inventive ways to attempt to trick the system. One of the main ways fraudulent tenants try to circumvent the process is through document forgery. Successful fraudsters cause chaos and financial hardship for landlords.
We’re taking the offensive against advanced fraud and protecting letting agents by incorporating ground-breaking artificial intelligence (AI) technology into our vigorous tenant checking process.
Every single application is checked against over 500 million data points, including the CIFAS database and our own unique default database, and completes many checks, including financial sanctions. The HomeLet database is unrivaled in the lettings market space.
The artificial intelligence system integrated into our sophisticated process adds an extra layer of protection from tenancy fraud. The system checks every document we receive, whether a PDF, image, or scanned copy, and continues to get smarter as it learns from every document it checks.
The multi-layered document analysis technology inspects the metadata and structure of documents to highlight uncommon changes and identify any changes in pixilation to detect forged images.
Thanks to the innovative AI technology, we’ve already reported many fraudulent applications with an average rental value of £1,543 per month.
As always, we are fully committed to leading the charge in eradicating fraud from the rental market. We have the unique position of incorporating 30 years of experience, combined with the data from Let Alliance and Rent4sure.
Comments from our experts
Commenting on AI technology, Head of Customer Operations Rebecca Baker said:
“It’s great to add another line of defence to our growing armoury of advanced fraud detection. Just last week, we stopped a case in Mayfair from getting through where the monthly rent was over £5,000. The fraudster had edited their documents to make it look like they were earning income from a legitimate source, but the source and transaction had been forged.
“We’ve already saved landlords £30 million in annual rents so far in 2023, through our innovative fraud detection. Helping our partner agents protect their customers will remains a priority.”
HomeLet Chief Executive Officer Andy Halstead added:
“We are the trusted partner to thousands of letting agents across the UK, and our incredible team are always looking for new, state-of-the-art innovations to improve our process and protect our partner agents. We have an unrivalled market position, our customers are at the heart of everything that we do. Innovation drives our pursuit of perfection for our customers, whilst perfection is never achieved, it is an admirable goal.”