Accommodation.co.uk

Accommodation.co.uk is a next-generation letting agency that leverages great people and technology to streamline the rental experience and make it better and more fair—not only for landlords (Accommodation.co.uk’s primary customers) but also for tenants (Accommodation.co.uk’s end-users) and the on-the-ground agents the company partners with across the UK. That meant creating an integrated, end-to-end lettings platform designed to improve communication and processes among all parties, from initial application through ongoing property management.

“Constant communication and transparency is one thing we pride ourselves on and is something our customers value about our service, and it’s severely lacking in the rental industry in the UK,” said Howard Russell, lettings director at Accommodation.

The Problem:

Lack of Transparency + an Unfriendly User Experience

Constant communication and transparency are critical at every stage of the lettings experience, including tenant referencing, a historically time-intensive, friction-filled undertaking rife with risk of fraud. It also typically adds days to the lettings application process.

When Russell joined Accommodation.co.uk, it was clear to him that the company needed to find a way to make referencing easier, faster, and more informative, so Accommodation.co.uk agents could find the best tenants for their customers’ properties as quickly and with as little administrative slog as possible.

According to Russell, he was looking for three things in a new referencing solution:

• A technology-focused company that could provide Accommodation.co.uk users with a similarly seamless experience
• A comprehensive reference that would allow agents to fully understand the eligibility of a prospective tenant
• A fast turnaround time on every reference check

“For us, Canopy ticked all the boxes,” he said.

Canopy’s Open Banking, Experian-backed technology was especially impressive to Russell, who has used four or five different referencing solutions throughout his career, none of which offered the speed or quality of check Canopy provides.

The Solution:

Happy Tenants + Comprehensive Screenings in Minutes

Now, with Canopy, tenants using Accommodation.co.uk are automatically prompted to create a digital RentPassportTM, which contains all of the information Accommodation.co.uk agents and landlords need to make smart, informed lettings decisions. Onboarding is simple, takes just minutes to complete, and tenants never have to toggle between web pages to complete the process.

When they’re done, a screening report, assessing the tenant’s financial health, is sent to Accommodation.co.uk, providing a detailed analysis of the tenant’s qualifications to rent, including:

• Identity and income verification
• Three-year address history
• Soft credit check and Experian credit score banding
• Adverse financial history (CCJs, AML, IVA, bankruptcy, insolvency, PEP, and sanctions)
• Past rent payment verification
• Algorithmic rental affordability based on multiple sources of income
• And more

According to Russell, tenants have only had positive experiences completing their RentPassportTM —something he calls unheard of in the lettings industry. Just as importantly, getting Accommodation.co.uk set up with Canopy was a breeze. Russell credits Canopy with making integration and adoption among Accommodation’s agents seamless.

“The Canopy team has been fantastic in terms of their responses and how quickly they got things going for us... When we rolled it out to our local letting agents, Canopy conducted trainings, which were really well done.”