Letting agents: Your leaky defence is sabotaging your growth

Letting agents are natural goalscorers. In fact, almost a third of you (27%) say lead generation is your top growth priority in 2026.

But if you’re up top searching for goals, who’s worrying about the other end of the pitch?

Fraudulent rental applications are up 140%, posing an existential threat to your backline. If your referencing process can’t weed out these bad actors, your existing landlords will churn, and the reputational damage will prevent you from winning new business.

So, how can you solidify your defensive foundations while keeping your Kane-like attacking edge?

In this blog, I’ll reveal exactly that.

Attack wins games, defence wins titles

You don’t need to be Paul the Octopus to say change is afoot in the lettings industry.

And your approach must change to keep pace.

In last year’s State of the Lettings Industry report, CEO of Reposit, Ben Grech, contended that while 70% of agents are focused on winning new business as a top priority, doing so is becoming increasingly challenging.

He said that in a landscape where more landlords than not are decreasing their portfolios “turning more let-only landlords into fully-managed and generating more revenue per let is crucial.”

In other words, defence is the best form of attack — an approach that Gareth Southgate would surely echo.

To execute this strategy effectively, you need to demonstrate your value by providing best-in-class services to your existing customers.

Two things in particular stand out in a time where reliable tenants are worth their weight in gold and achieving vacant possession is more difficult than ever:

Referencing and Rent Protection Insurance.

The 2 players missing from your winning lineup

Every winning team finds a balance between attack and defence. Goodlord acts as the Rice to your Saka, shoring up your backline:

Defence: PRO Referencing

According to recent Goodlord polling, 36% of landlords rank tenant referencing as their #1 priority when choosing an agent.

The reasoning behind this is clear. Confirmed fraud cases are up, with 94% of them involving fake documents.

However, 43% of landlords are frustrated by poor tenant vetting. This means it’ll be challenging for you to both attract and retain customers without a robust referencing process.

Here’s how Goodlord channels Mark Guéhi to block bad actors from securing your properties:

• Credit checks - We assess tenants using a comprehensive range of checks, including credit history, outstanding debts, County Court Judgements (CCJs), bankruptcies, and payment behaviour.

• Sanctions checks - We automate PEPs and sanctions checks as part of the referencing process, reducing admin, ensuring compliance, and protecting your business from potentially significant regulatory fines.

• Direct-to-payroll checks - We reduce the risk of payslip fraud by verifying income directly with payroll providers. Covering more than 80% of UK employees, including NHS staff, it gives you greater confidence in every application.

• HMRC checks - We mitigate payslip fraud by verifying income directly from the source, reducing reliance on documentation that may be inaccurate, altered, or fraudulent.

• Open Banking - We verify income directly from a tenant's bank data, including salary, pension, and benefit payments, reducing delays and helping tenancies progress more quickly.

• Identity Document Validation Technology (IDVT) - We reduce the risk of identity fraud by digitally verifying a tenant's identity and right to rent, while speeding up the referencing process by eliminating the need for face-to-face checks.

All of this helps you meet the needs of your existing customers and deliver on the promises you make to prospects.

Goalkeeper: Rent Protection Insurance

Any good team protects their goalkeeper by reducing the shots they face. But when you need to call them into action, they’d better be prepared.

Like Jordan Pickford in a penalty shootout, Goodord’s Rent Protection Insurance acts as your last line of defence in case of emergency. Here’s what our policy includes:

• Mediation handled - We work with landlords and tenants to prevent unpaid rent cases from escalating to court, while also saving you time.

• 100% of rent paid until vacant possession - While many providers stop rent payments after 12–15 months, we don't. That means you're protected if eviction proceedings take longer than expected.

• First month’s rent guaranteed - You can claim from the first missed rent payment, including the tenant's first month of tenancy, with no impact on future claims.

• Section 13 dispute cover - Should a tenant dispute a rent increase, we'll bridge the gap between the current rent and the higher proposed amount for up to six months.

• Monthly rent caps - Goodlord Guarantor’s extended rent caps cover professionals up to £8,000 per month and students up to £5,000 per month. This allows you to move forward with applicants who don’t have guarantors or fall just outside the standard eligibility threshold.

By protecting your clients’ rental income, you keep them happy while safeguarding your management fees. This allows you to attack the market for new business from a position of strength.

Conclusion

As I’ve shown throughout this blog, defence isn’t only about preventing goals. It’s a starting point for attack.

With PRO Referencing, you can get on the front foot, identifying fraud, properly verifying tenants, and making better decisions at the start of the tenancy.

With Rent Protection Insurance, unforeseen banana skins don’t cause chaos, and you can keep your clients’ income flowing.

As a result, you can sniff out new opportunities while retaining your existing customers.

This is the best strategy for agencies that want to scale in a market where there are simply fewer landlords to win.