Tenant referencing fraud: how to spot fake payslips and forged documents

Every landlord has heard the anecdote: a tenant who looked perfect on paper, paid a few months in advance, then stopped paying rent altogether. Increasingly, that perfect-on-paper look is manufactured. Referencing fraud is no longer an edge case. According to Goodlord’s analysis of more than 300,000 tenancy applications, fraud rates jumped 140% between 2022 and 2023, from 1.2 to 2.9 cases per 1,000 applications. The same research found that 58% of all fraudulent applications detected in 2023 involved fake or doctored payslips.

The tools to fabricate a convincing payslip are now freely available. A basic image editor, a template downloaded from the internet, and twenty minutes is all it takes to produce something that would fool an untrained eye at a viewing. Fraudsters know this. Your job is to make sure the eyeball test is the last line of defence, not the only one.

Why payslip fraud has become the method of choice

Affordability checks are the keystone of any tenant referencing process: if an applicant meets the income threshold, most other checks tend to follow. Manipulating a payslip is therefore one of the highest-leverage moves a bad applicant can make. Nishma Parekh, head of referencing at Goodlord, puts it plainly: “Fraud can come in many forms. In some instances, tenants who are desperate to secure a property think bumping up their salary will help seal the deal.”

That desperation is real. Rents rose sharply through 2021-23 and have stayed elevated; the average UK rent for a new tenancy passed £1,000 a month back in 2021 and has climbed steadily since (HomeLet). Applicants who genuinely cannot afford a property but feel locked out of alternatives have a clear motive. That does not make fraud victimless. Homeppl, a referencing technology firm, estimates the average cost of a fraudulent tenancy to a landlord, once eviction and legal fees are factored in, at around £64,000.

What a forged payslip actually looks like

Most forgeries are not artworks. They contain tells that a methodical review will catch. Here are the ones that come up most consistently:

Tax code anomalies. The standard PAYE tax code for 2024/25 is 1257L, reflecting the £12,570 personal allowance. An applicant claiming, say, £55,000 a year who shows a BR code (basic rate on all earnings, used when HMRC has no record of a main employment) is showing a mismatch. Emergency codes ending in W1 or M1 can be legitimate for new starters, but should prompt a direct question. If the income and the tax code tell contradictory stories, push back.

National Insurance numbers that don’t add up. A valid NI number follows the format two letters, six digits, one letter (the suffix is A, B, C or D), for example AB123456C. A fake document may carry a malformed number or reuse a well-known placeholder. Cross-checking the NI number against other documents in the application is basic hygiene.

Net and gross figures that don’t reconcile. On a real payslip, the maths works: gross, minus income tax, minus employee National Insurance, equals net pay. Many forged payslips are assembled by inflating the gross figure without adjusting the deductions, so the net pay is implausibly high relative to what should have been taken off. Get a calculator out.

Font and formatting inconsistencies. Within a single payslip, look for slight variations in typeface weight, misaligned decimal points and inconsistent line spacing. These are artefacts of pasting edited figures into a template. Also check whether the employer address and company number, if shown, match a real entry on Companies House.

Missing or implausible employer details. Ring the employer, but not on the number the tenant gave you. Look the company up independently on Companies House or its official website, call the main switchboard, and ask HR or payroll to confirm the individual’s employment and salary band. A fraudster who has listed a real company is relying on you to call the number they supplied.

Source verification: why the document itself is not the point

The deeper problem with the eyeball test is that it treats the document as the source of truth. It isn’t. A payslip is an assertion made by the applicant. The real source of truth is the payment record, the HMRC PAYE record, or the bank account that receives the salary.

Open banking is the most direct fix. Under the UK’s open banking framework, an applicant can grant a referencing provider read-only, revocable access to their bank transaction history (typically the last 90 days) via their own banking login. This pulls salary deposits directly from the bank, with no document involved and nothing to forge. If the £3,500 monthly salary claimed on a payslip isn’t landing in the account, you’ll know. Applicants who flatly refuse open banking when it’s offered are worth a second look.

HMRC and payroll integration. A growing number of referencing providers now verify income directly against HMRC PAYE records or payroll data, with the applicant’s consent (Goodlord, Konfir and others offer this). The income figure comes from a trusted system rather than a document the applicant emailed you. At PropertyGoose, our process is built around source-verified income checks rather than submitted documents alone.

Bank statement cross-referencing. Where open banking isn’t used, ask for three months of original bank statements and trace the salary pattern yourself. Genuine payroll credits are consistent (same amount, same date, same originator reference) and sit alongside the mundane noise of real life: direct debits, utilities, the occasional takeaway. Statements showing only tidy salary credits and nothing else warrant scrutiny.

The checks that catch what documents miss

Document fraud is only part of the picture. Homeppl’s 2024 report found 94% of fraud cases involved fake documents, with doctored bank statements the single most common type (81% of cases). A holistic approach covers:

• Credit history. High existing debt sitting alongside an income claim that should support a comfortable lifestyle is contradictory. It doesn’t prove fraud, but it should prompt deeper investigation.
• Electoral roll and address history. Gaps in address history, addresses that don’t appear in standard databases, or an applicant who is unusually vague about previous addresses are consistent with a fabricated identity.
• Landlord references verified independently. Where possible, confirm the previous landlord’s identity against an independent source such as Land Registry title information rather than relying solely on a number the applicant supplied.
• The National Fraud Database. Cifas operates the National Fraud Database, the UK’s largest cross-sector fraud database, with around two million records and hundreds of thousands of new cases filed each year. Providers who screen applicants against it will surface anyone previously recorded for fraud elsewhere.

What happens when fraud is confirmed

If you identify a fraudulent application, don’t simply reject it and move on. Report it through the appropriate channel. A confirmed fraud recorded against an individual can be visible to organisations running identity or credit checks, potentially preventing the next landlord in the chain from being defrauded. As Goodlord’s Nishma Parekh notes, this “could end up on the National Fraud Database, impacting future job prospects and other life events such as securing loans”, which underscores that this is a serious matter, not a victimless game.

Document exactly what you received and what checks you ran. If you ever need to pursue possession proceedings, a clear paper trail of the referencing process, and any fraud you uncovered, will be relevant evidence.

The practical baseline

No single check catches everything. What works is defence in depth: a reputable tenant referencing service that verifies income at source (open banking or HMRC/payroll), a credit check from a recognised agency, independent employer and landlord verification, and fraud-database screening. Understand what each provider actually checks, not just what they list on their website; our comparison page sets out the differences.

The headline fraud rate is still relatively low: Goodlord’s data puts it under 3 in 1,000 applications even at its 2023 peak. But given the financial exposure, treating referencing as a box-ticking exercise rather than genuine due diligence is a risk that isn’t worth taking. The technology now exists to verify income without relying on documents at all. Use it.

Craig Ryder is co-founder of PropertyGoose, an AI-powered tenant referencing platform built for UK landlords and letting agents.