Self employed and renting an apartment

No, not for me. I'm asking this on behalf of a friend. She is self employed (although not very successfully due to recession, etc) as a therapist. She is looking to move house soon, but is concerned that letting agents will ask for references and as her bank balance is less than healthy, she is worried that they will refuse to take her on as a tenant.

Naturally, she has heard all of this only on hearsay, rather than actually going to a letting agent and hearing it from the horse's mouth, I have offered to find out for definite but I thought I'd ask on here first, seeing as there is a wealth of experience to fall back on.

She has been paying rent for the last five years to her current landlady, by standing order, so there is an official bank record of this and has never missed any of the payments.

She does freelance work for someone who runs her own business, so could get a reference there and my partner is a Company Director and would be happy to provide a personal reference as well.

So, is anyone here self employed and renting? If so, what do letting agents ask for in terms of a reference?

Thanks

 

Aaron - I don't know the answer.

But I remember a bit of advice I was given by a friend who wanted to borrow £500,000 a long time ago to buy a business. He said that he went to about a dozen banks. The first bank he went to was one he didn't want to borrow money from. They tore him to shreds for his lack of planning, referances etc. So he learnt from that and went to the next bank, that he didn't want to borrow from. They found more holes and again turned him down. And so on learning each time. Finally he went to the bank that he did want to borrow the money from, and they said that they had never seen such a well prepared case and there would be no problem.

I think there is a lesson in there that would fit many situations.