Employers are not useful at all for applications to rent a property.  They legally cannot disclose any confidential information about an applicant including earnings or time they've been employed due to privacy restrictions - but more importantly, why would they risk causing an employee becoming disgruntled to protect you - a stranger, from the possibility of rental default?

There are two lines of questioning we recommend for employees;

1. Do you expect the applicant will be still employed with you in six months?
2. Would you rent the applicant a property you own?

Really the best you can hope for is a telling hesitation.  If they quickly and confidently respond positively you're probably on to a good thing.

Friends and Family will always tell you the applicant is a "great bloke" - which is obviously not helpful.  What you're really trying to establish here is their honesty and social responsibility.

When interviewing a Friend - the best question to ask is how long they've know the applicant - and how did they meet.  This will be cross checked with your applicant immediately after the interview with the Friend and if the stories don't match - alarm bells.

Interviewing Family is always harder.  There's no point asking if they've every had to help out the applicant financial (they will always so no) or if they would be prepared to if the need were to arise (they will always say "sure but with him - it will never happen) so we use this to establish social responsibility.

We've found the most effective question to ask is what the applicant did for the most resent past Christmas.  What you're looking for here is good family values - if the Family being interviewed don't know what the applicant did, there's a fair chance they're not too close.  Or - on the other hand, if it was a big happy family do, chances are your applicant wont disappear if the rent becomes overdue.

Past rentals is actually an interesting one.  Did you know that past property managers are actually discouraged from ever saying anything negative about a previous tenant?  It can lead to litigation for defamation - but within the industry is a certain camaraderie among property managers and the right question will get you all the background you need.

There are two kinds of past rental, the current residence of the applicant and the property prior to that.

For the current residence it's important to ask if the referee has received notice that the applicant is ending the tenancy.  The answer will be extremely telling of relationship - if the referee has a great relationship with the tenant they will have open dialog and this will show in the response.  Even if there is no formal notice given, the referees domineer in response is most telling.

For prior rental references, the most effective question is to ask if the bond was returned in full.  This is a question of fact - and the referee can answer openly and without reservation or consideration of repercussion.

For both current and prior references the most critical question to ask is whether the referee would rent to the applicant again.  It is the only question the referee can answer as a matter of opinion without consideration of the consequences of their reply.  Without the need to elaborate on detail - they are at liberty to say that they would not again rent to the applicant - and if they wouldn't, you shouldn't.