APTs – Insurance and legal cover questions?

I am just coming up to building insurance renewal and fairly happy to stick with the current broker and insurer. My insurer does cover for differing types of tenants, including the standard ‘norm’ of self-funders (private payers), retired, and those on benefits.

The Legal expenses element, though (as part of my building insurance cover and premium), is provided by a third party, ARC. This third party provider has recently decided to amend their cover to state that tenant references must be obtained…

A tenant reference is defined as:

“A credit check against the Tenant and any Guarantor obtained from a licensed credit referencing company showing no County Court Judgments in the past three years and no outstanding County Court Judgments, together with copies of two forms of identification, one of which must contain a photograph, and a written employers’ reference on company letter headed paper confirming their permanent and current employment and that their gross monthly salary is at least a multiple of 2.5 of the Tenant’s Rent. If all of the above are not available or in the case of student Tenants or Tenants receiving any income or housing-related government benefit, a full Tenant Reference showing a Pass on the Tenant and Guarantor must be obtained from Arc’s approved tenant referencing company. Details of these companies are available by referring to the Arc Legal website…

“Where You fail to provide evidence that You successfully completed a Tenant Reference on the Tenant (and Guarantor if required) prior to the start of the Tenancy Agreement or where the Tenancy Agreement started more than 31 days after the Tenant Reference obtained, there is no cover under the policy”.

So it looks like even if your insurer is ok with your tenant ‘type’, the legal provider is now holding court over whether a legal claim is accepted or not.

In this case, is it wise to make sure from the very start (and in the advertising) that applicants are aware of this?

It will certainly cut down on the numbers that may apply (a good thing from a time management perspective), but am I going to make myself open to being accused of rental discrimination if I do?

Many thanks Reluctant