A new fraud report by Goodlord, entitled “Tenancy fraud is no joke” reviewed a sample of over 1m completed references during the period April 2023 – July 2026, and found that AI Intelligence (AI) has made convincing payslips, bank statements, and employment references easier to create than ever before.
Oli Sherlock, managing director of insurance at Goodlord, said: “Increasingly, fraudsters aren’t simply forging paperwork; they’re creating entirely believable identities that can withstand traditional referencing checks. The uncomfortable truth is the sector is being caught out by these criminals. That’s why we produced a report to understand the techniques they’re using and how we can work together, as an industry, to stop them.
“This report reveals fraudulent tenancy applications could be exposing the UK’s private rented sector to up to £4.1bn in financial losses every year. Beyond these startling numbers, a single fraudulent tenancy creates a ripple effect. It places landlords under emotional pressure. It consumes countless hours for letting agents. It clogs up the court system. It also ties up homes that could otherwise be available to genuine tenants at a time when housing supply is already critically overstretched. In the most serious cases, it can provide a foothold for wider criminality that causes harm well beyond the rental sector.”
Goodlord says that the scale of the problem is bigger than many realise. London is the UK’s fraud hotspot and nationally, referee-flagged tenancy fraud has risen by 78% year-on-year and fraud rates remain around 40% higher than the Q2 2023 baseline.
The report found that high-value properties are experiencing disproportionately high levels of sophisticated fraud, which it estimates to be one in every fifty applicaitons. It added that the cost of getting tenant referencing wrong has never been higher, with possession proceedings already take more than 15 months in some cases, which it says is likely to extend under the Renters’ Rights Act.
Regionally, Greater London is consistently the country’s hotspot, recording fraud rates around twice the national average and well ahead of every other region. The West Midlands has the second-highest rate, followed by the North West. At the other end of the scale, Scotland, Wales, the North East, and the South West consistently record the lowest fraud rates, highlighting a significant regional difference in exposure.
The report states: ” Behind every fraudulent application is a landlord who may face months of uncertainty, legal costs, and difficult conversations if that application succeeds. The consequences of getting tenant referencing wrong don’t begin when an application is submitted. They begin when the warning signs have already been missed.”
Comments (2)
Report to fraud agency. No better deterrent than fraud to stop financial abuse all round.
On emailing the day after the Panorama, I asked them would they honour the rental insurance if Goodlord later found out that a tenant used bogus references. I’m still waiting for a reply.