Are there services in India who can do the tenant verification based on an Aadhaar card?*

As a Landlord, if I’m going to let someone stay in my house, I’d like to get a feel of the antecedents of that person in terms of character, creditworthiness, and so on.

For Commercial Real Estate, property management companies do formal verification.

For Residential Real Estate, the verification is somewhat informal and happens via one or more of the following methods:

Police Verification of Tenant. At least in the Pune-Bombay area that I know of, most societies and / or registration offices insist on police verification of tenant before they approve a leave-and-license agreement. This can be done either by Tenant or Landlord or Real Estate Broker.

Interview by Landlord. While carrying out the viewing of the house, the landlord and / or authorized broker and tenant inevitably speak to each other and get a feel of each others’ background such as occupation, employer name, common friends, etc.

Society Interview. I know some societies in the Pune-Bombay area that conduct interviews of potential Tenants before rubber-stamping the leave-and-license agreement.

Credit Check: Not sure if this happens in India but, when I was a tenant abroad (e.g. Germany, UK), I got the feeling that the Property Management Company that managed the apartment in London did pull my credit report before agreeing to rent out the apartment to me.

Although there seem to be a number of methods of verification, I wouldn’t say that the verification process is foolproof.

  • It’s not easy for the Landlord to be sure in advance that the Tenant won’t disturb the peace of the neighborhood, cause unnecessary disputes, or refuse to move out when Landlord wants the apartment back.
  • Per contra, it’s also difficult for the Tenant to be sure in advance that the Landlord won’t refuse to undertake repairs or create other problems.

Trust and luck play a big role, which is not the most optimal of situations.

I see scope for a startup or two in the tenant-landlord verification space.

*: This is the original question I answered. I’m repeating it to help me make sense of my answer in case it’s moved to / merged with some other question that I didn’t answer.