Letting agents will now be able to conduct digital right-to-rent checks on British and Irish citizens using identity verification technology (IDVT). This is thanks to a new partnership between the Goodlord group and Credas, the industry-leading digital identity service provider.
Right-to-rent legislation changed late last year to allow letting agents and landlords in England to use certified identity service providers (IDSPs) to carry out checks on British and Irish citizens remotely on their behalf, using identity verification technology.
The Goodlord group will offer its certified right-to-rent service through the Vouch platform from June 2023. This service will also be made available through the Goodlord platform in the next few months.
This service will be offered as an add-on to its current referencing checks for users of the platforms. Powered by Credas, it will include ID fraud checks, documentation verification and "liveness detection" checks, which can detect whether a face is real or fake.
Credas' cutting-edge identity verification technology is used across a range of sectors to support compliance by providing real-time biometric facial recognition checks.
As the leading digital identity and anti-money laundering platform for estate agents and letting agents, they carry out hundreds of thousands of checks on buyers, sellers, and tenants each month.
The new partnership will reduce the amount of time letting agents spend screening tenants while remaining compliant with the latest government guidelines.
Tom Goodman, Managing Director of Vouch, comments:
"The last few years has seen an acceleration in the digitisation of right to rent checks. We know that letting agents, landlords, and tenants have welcomed this as it reduces admin and brings lettings into the 21st century. Our partnership with Credas means we can take this a step further - integrating IDVT with our current referencing process and cutting out the middleman for letting agents."
Tim Barnett, CEO at Credas, comments:
"At a time when customer verification is more important than ever for a whole host of reasons, our technology allows stakeholders throughout the property and legal industries and beyond to be truly compliant in knowing their customer and mitigating their vulnerability in an easy ‘plug and play’ way.
"The Goodlord group partnership is a great example of how two tech companies can come together to help solve a shared problem for their clients. By removing another step, in what is quite a drawn out process, Letting Agents will be able to reclaim their lost time.”