How We Verify

⏳ Identity documents expire — and so does the check

The expiry date is recorded when the document is uploaded and confirmed by the reviewer against the document itself. One month before it runs out the tenant is emailed and notified in the app, while there is still time to replace it. On the expiry date the document is archived and the identity check is withdrawn — an expired document cannot evidence who someone is — so the Blue Tick is removed until a valid replacement is uploaded and approved. The tenant is emailed when that happens, and replacing an expired ID is always free. The same applies to a visa or IRP card where one is required.

📸 Verified photo

Once the passport is approved, a HomePass staff member extracts a face photo directly from the document and stores it securely against the tenant's profile. This verified photo is the only photo a landlord or agent ever sees: it appears on the tenant's Live HomePassport and is embedded in all outbound emails sent to employers and landlords — so the person you are looking at is the exact same person whose identity has been independently checked. A tenant's self-uploaded profile picture is never shown to professionals, and until the ID photo is verified the passport shows no photo at all. (The Anonymous HomePassport never shows a photo — and if a tenant chooses to show their Tenant ID instead of their name on the Live HomePassport, the photo is hidden along with the name.)

🛡️ Why it matters

The phone number on a passport is the number landlords and agents actually ring. A verified number means a code was received on that exact device — it is an additional trust signal shown on the passport and is separate from the Blue Tick checks below.

🔁 Cross-check

The employer is asked to independently confirm the tenant's employment status, whether they work full-time or part-time, their length of service, their declared job title, and their contract type (permanent, fixed-term, probationary, or freelance/contract). HomePass compares their answers against what the tenant declared on their profile. Any discrepancy — even a minor one — is flagged for manual review before the employment check can be signed off.

🔒 Details locked during and after verification

From the moment the verification email is sent until the employer responds (or the request expires after 7 days), the tenant cannot edit their employment details — the employer is confirming exactly what the tenant declared. After a successful verification the details are shown as a confirmed record. If the tenant's employment situation changes — including taking up work when they first verified on a different pathway, such as student or not currently working — they enter the new details and pay a €9 re-verification fee at the moment the new verification is sent — their existing verification stays intact until that payment completes. Any old employment and income verifications are then retired and both checks must be completed again with the new employer (or, for self-employment, through document review). Moving the other way is free: a tenant who stops working or retires declares it at no charge — their employment documents are archived and their Blue Tick is recalculated for the new pathway (for retirement, the income check re-opens against a pension statement or letter). Recent payslips from the previous job stay visible on the passport, labelled "previous employment", until they are 3 months old; older documents tied to that employer are archived. Changing role with the same employer retires nothing — the income check is simply re-done against the new pay. The Employment Detail Summary is never retired by a job change either: it records a completed tax year, and Revenue only issues it once a year. It is flagged for renewal each 1 January once a newer tax year exists, and archived two months later if a newer one hasn't been uploaded. Declaring that they have stopped working is free — employment and income checks are removed, documents are archived, and permanent personal checks (identity, PPS) are kept, with the Blue Tick recalculated for the Not Currently Working pathway.

🔍 Every document is checked by a person

Documents are reviewed for authenticity as well as content — date ranges, name matches, and signs of digital editing. Screenshots and edited statements are rejected.

🔒 Why this matters

A paper reference can be written by anyone. By going directly to the landlord — with a photo verified by HomePass, not by the tenant — we close the gap that makes traditional references easy to fake. The landlord sees a face they recognise (or don't), and responds on their own terms.

🏠 What this means for landlords and letting agents

When you see an Approved landlord reference on a HomePass passport, it means a real, named previous landlord responded directly to HomePass — not to the tenant — and confirmed the tenancy on record. That's a significantly stronger signal than a letter alone.

🔵 What the Blue Tick means

When you see a Blue Tick on a HomePass profile, it means a real person at HomePass has reviewed that tenant's identity, employment, income, and tenancy history against independent sources — not just self-submitted documents.

🎓 How we verify students

A student's Blue Tick requires two things that must agree with each other: a Student Enrolment Letter reviewed by our team, and a one-time code confirmed from an email address on their college's own student email domain (for example @ucdconnect.ie for UCD) — from a list of Irish institutions we maintain and verify ourselves. A letter can be forged; receiving email at a college's own domain cannot, because only the college can issue those mailboxes. The two must name the same college. The passport always shows the tenant's pathway (Student, Employed, and so on) alongside the tick, so you can see exactly what was checked. Students at colleges that don't issue student email addresses are reviewed manually against their enrolment letter and student card together.

🏘️ What the Blue Tick unlocks — the property marketplace

Verified tenants get free access to the HomePass property marketplace: browse every live rental listed by verified professionals, open any property's page, apply with your passport, and message the listing agent. The verification fee is the only thing a tenant ever pays — marketplace access costs nothing extra, and property listings simply aren't visible to unverified accounts. That's a promise to both sides: agents know every person viewing their listing is verified, and tenants know every listing comes from a verified professional.

🔒 Privacy on the Tenant Marketplace — two passports

A tenant has two distinct passports. The Anonymous HomePassport is what professionals see when browsing the Tenant Marketplace: verified credentials — employment, verification badges, references and any optional details the tenant switches on (income starts hidden) — but structurally no identity. It can never show the tenant's name, photo, date of birth, phone, email, street address or documents, regardless of any setting. The Live HomePassport is the fuller passport a tenant shares directly with a specific landlord or agent via their own link: the tenant controls every field, with date of birth, phone and email hidden by default, and their name shown by default (sharing the link is their choice — they can switch the name off to show their Tenant ID instead). Pausing either switch takes the corresponding passport offline at any time.

⭐ Shortlisting — and the owner's opinion

A letting agent doesn't have to decide on an application on the spot: they can shortlist the applicants they're considering for a property, and move anyone back to general review afterwards. The tenant is told when they're shortlisted, because that's the point at which their profile may be shown to the property owner. Where an agent manages a property for someone else, they can then send that owner a secure link so the owner can give an opinion on the shortlist. That link shows only the Anonymous HomePassport of each shortlisted applicant — Tenant ID, verified checks and the details the tenant chose to show — so the decision stays based on verified facts rather than identity. A tenant's name appears on the link only once they book a viewing of the property (they are about to meet in person); contact details and documents are never shown. The link expires after 14 days, the agent can withdraw it at any time, and every opening is logged. Tenants are told this can happen before they apply.

🏡 Offers — and the tenant's answer

When an agent decides, they send an offer, not a verdict: the tenant gets the agent's own offer letter by email, with that property's details filled in automatically, and accepts or declines it in HomePass. The agent is notified either way, and their other shortlisted applicants stay exactly where they were. An offer is an expression of intent — it isn't a tenancy agreement, and no tenancy exists until a separate agreement is signed between the tenant and the landlord or their agent.

✍️ Whose words a tenant is reading

The offer is the agent's own letter. The shortlist and unsuccessful-application notices are HomePass's, and stay that way — the shortlist notice has to explain that a tenant's profile may be shown to the property owner, and that explanation isn't an agent's to delete. An agency can add a paragraph of its own underneath, clearly marked as coming from the agent, so a tenant always knows who is speaking.

🏠 How we verify landlords & letting agents

Verification runs both ways. Every landlord and agency owner completes the same identity foundation as a tenant: a government-issued identity document, their PPS number with supporting proof, and a verified email address. On top of that, private landlords provide one proof that they own the property they're letting (land folio, mortgage statement, LPT receipt, or RTB registration — financial figures may be redacted); landlords letting through a company have the company's CRO number checked against the public register; and letting agencies have their PSRA licence number checked against the public PSRA register, and may be confirmed by a call to the agency's publicly listed contact details.

👥 Agency staff

A verified agency's owner (or their appointed Administrator) can invite colleagues by email onto the agency's HomePass account. Staff are not verified separately — the agency's owner vouching for them is the check, and it's recorded: every invite is logged, staff invites can only go to the agency's own email addresses, and everything a staff member does on HomePass is done visibly in the agency's name. Removing a staff member ends their access immediately, and verified status is never portable — it exists only through membership of the verified agency.

🤝 Linked households

Tenants renting as a couple, family, or group can link their HomePass accounts as renting partners. Linking never shortcuts verification: every linked member must independently complete the checks required for their situation and hold their own Blue Tick before the household appears together on the Tenant Marketplace. The declared relationship and children information shown between linked profiles is provided by the tenants themselves and agreed by both — HomePass verifies each person's identity, employment, and income, not their relationship.