Hi

We are looking to rent in Sydney, trouble is we are home owners in the UK and have not rented for 10 years so can't supply any landlord references to give any potential landlord for vetting.

Does anyone have any good idea of what we could provide.....I was thinking of a character ref from my UK employer or something ?

Any ideas ?

Matt

Hi Matt

We're in the exact same circumstances. I emailed some agents in the mountains where we're going to live.

They suggested bank statements up to a year from the UK, passport obviously, mortgage statements before you closed your account and possibly a letter of recommendation from the agent you sold through, detailing the condition of your house when you sold it. A character reference would also be great.
Generally, provide anything you can for them, to make it easier for them.
The more the merrier!


Other than that, they didn't have any more suggestions for me.

Good luck!

Hi

We're moving to Richmond in NSW in two weeks time. We've never rented so I was worried about the same thing. We've got a friend in Oz whos been viewing properties for us and yesterday found one that she thought would be ideal. We submitted an application (she scanned it to us etc) and included our mortgage statement, utility bills, savings account statement, copy of passport and copy of drivers licence. Within 3 hours we got an email back saying that our application had been successful - no problem at all. On the application form they asked about our address and previous address. I stated on each of the addresses that we owned the property rather than rented and quoted the mortgage company names. The also asked for references but the names we quoted were just friends from the uk - they only asked for their name, occupation and phone number.

HTH

Rach xxxx

Hi Rach,

Could you please tell us which estate agent you rented through? We are looking to move to the same area soon and would really like to have something lined up in advance.

How are you finding it living in Richmond? We haven't lived around there before but we have family just outside Windsor so it seems like a good location for us. We'd love to hear how you have found it, and whether your stuff has arrived in one piece!

Cheers,
Tanya, Dave, Oscar & Megan

We brought bank statements with us and also character references. As it happens they did not want them as the real estate agent used her judgement and recommended us to the owner.

we were in the same situation, so we just paid the six months rental up front and gor the rental place we wanted, and the landlord was chuffed and so were we! There was 3 other people after the property as well so we were over the moon. I would say if you can do it that way, it saves alot of hassle.

Hi...when you pay 6 months in advance, does it mean that u don't pay anything until month 7?

OR

is it like a 6 month deposit?

Thanks
TC

It's not my question to answer but I would assume that you then didn't pay anything until month 7 as you also have to pay a 'bond' which is the 'deposit' side of things and this is normally equal to several weeks rental.

We paid 6 months up front and that meant then that there were no payments till month 7, but we took the house on a 6 month lease anyway so we would have had to renegotiate then anyway (we actually broke the lease after 2 months and thought we would lose the rent we had paid but as they re let it straight away we got it back)

I was in the same situation when I moved to Sydney in Decemner last year, I didn't have to pay anything more than a month in advance just had to show that I had money in the bank and could afford the rent.

I think the bond is legally set at 4/5 weeks rent and is held by a third party - gaining interest which you get - and is refunded once both parties agree on the condition report at the end of the rental.

We had references and paid 3 months up front, but the references were never contacted anyway, we showed we had money in the bank and the landlord also check the passports to see that we had actually just arrived in Oz.