Foreign tenant requires proof of address

S

spinal_tap

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Just a quick question — a foreign tenant of mine has a friend from home living in the house for the summer and has asked me to write a letter confirming that this person is residing at the rented address.

The new tenant has gotten a job, but I am told does not yet have a PPS number, and on a couple of occasions I have visited the property, the person has not been there.

Should I go ahead and write the letter anyway, or should I be suspicious?

If I wrote the letter and it turned out the person never lived there, would I be liable for anything if it turned out to be a scam of some sort?

It;s not that I don't trust the existing tenant, I'm just generally wary.
 
TBH,
I would be reluctant myself, as you have never met the person, and the person does not have a PPS number.
 
If you haven't seen them then you can't say that. If they are paying rent then say that. If they are not paying rent and not staying there, then I don't see why you would get involved in anyway.
 
I wouldn't see not having a PPS number yet as grounds for suspicion. As far as I know you need some proof of address to be able to get a PPS number, this may be why they are looking for it.
 
Help your tenant out....write the letter. They only want the PPS number and you need an address for that. You will not incriminate yourself
 
Having a PPS with the wrong adress (if they are not living there) isn't going to be much help when everything gets posted there. People make up all sorts of wonderful addresses then run into problems when the various systems spot a disparity and flag it as a problem.
 
I was asked for a similar letter, previous to being asked i had got a call from welfare or immigration (cant quite remember) asking was a certin person living at the rented premises(the guy gave my mobile without my knowledge or permission to welfare )I checked the lease and told them the guy shouldnt be living there and i never saw him there ,when i asked what was it about the guy said that they were investigating a scam where people were travelling from brittan to Ireland collecting welfare payments in both jurisdictions.your case could be straight up but i would put a face to a name and get a passport photocopy before id do that for anyone.
 
I agree you should at least meet this person before you write the letter. However if it were some sort of scam could they not just get someone to write a letter and take a call using your identity. If the tenent has been with you for some time and has been honest in all your other dealings with him there is probably little to worry about. It does seem like an unusual request though!
 
Thanks for the replies.

I have arranged to meet the new tenant and explained that I will need to update the tenancy registration with the PRTB anyway, and will eventually need their PPS number for that, so it does look like everything is kosher. It just seemed a little odd to me though. Still, I'd rather be doing everything by the books than having a worry further down the line.

Thanks again
 
Unless things have changed, if you apply for a PPS no you need a letter from your landlord to confirm that you live at that address and that is where the correspondence is sent to. Also a friend of mine has her house rented and she had to write a letter confirming that they (her tenants) lived at that address so that they could have their bank details changed.
 
may not be a scam but i would look for a copy of passport as proof of id ...
 
Serotoninside,
That's fine if you wrote a letter for a bona-fide tenant of yours. This case is a little different. It's a request to write a letter confirming the home address of a firend of a tenabt, someone that the OP has never met and who is only "staying" for the summer. I repeat what I said, caution advised and the advice of requesting photocopied passport ID aswell and actually meeting this person is needed.
 
Just to clarify ... this person will also be an official tenant for the summer period and will be registered by myself with PRTB.
 
Thedoc said:
Serotoninsid,
That's fine if you wrote a letter for a bona-fide tenant of yours. This case is a little different. It's a request to write a letter confirming the home address of a firend of a tenabt, someone that the OP has never met and who is only "staying" for the summer. I repeat what I said, caution advised and the advice of requesting photocopied passport ID aswell and actually meeting this person is needed.
Click to expand...
Point taken. But if the OP is doing as he says in his last post above, then he's well covered.
 
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