Landlord tells how he set up LRS after being stabbed by tenant

Published by Max Salsbury for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Communities, Legal

The founder of Landlord Referencing Services (LRS) has told how he was inspired to create the system after being stabbed by a tenant.

Weston-super-Mare landlord Paul Routledge was stabbed five times in the head after he walked in on a drug deal.

LandlordReferencing.co.uk offers comprehensive tenant referencing to landlords and letting agents. The system supplies details of rent arrears and damage direct from the previous landlord.

In an interview for Property Tribes TV, Mr Routledge said: "I had a call that there was a problem at one of my flats. When I turned up the front door was open, so I walked in calling 'is anybody there?'.

"I got to the front room and found two guys sat down and another, my tenant, stood by the sink. It was obvious a drug deal was going on so I told them to get out, at which point my tenant jumped over and started stabbing me in the head.

"A fight ensued and he ended up leaving me for dead on the staircase."

After the incident Mr Routledge was determined to find a way to protect landlords from dangerous tenants.

He studied the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and discovered that there was a way that landlords could liaise with one another - network referencing.

Landlords are now able to trade information about tenants through the LRS website.

Mr Routledge said: "The attack, coupled with the legislation around tenancy, that there was no way we could get our money out of people, led me to look for ways to prevent these kind of things happening."

A few months before the attack, Mr Routledge had discovered the body of one of his tenants - a 60-year-old man who had been bludgeoned to death by another of his tenants.