Commercial Tenant Screening: Cross-Check Company, Accounts, Guarantor

Commercial tenant screening for a lease applicant means comparing four sets of evidence against each other: the Companies House record, the latest filed accounts, The Gazette insolvency notices and the guarantor's undertaking. Each is checked field by field: company name, registered number, registered office, officer names, accounting reference date, guarantor identity. The aim is not to predict whether the tenant will pay, but to find, before heads of terms become a signed lease, the mismatches that call for a question.

This article is general information for the United Kingdom as at October 2026 and is not legal advice. Have the guarantee and lease wording reviewed by a solicitor.

What a cross-check compares on a commercial lease applicant

A cross-check confirms that one fact (who the tenant is, who can bind it, who pays if it defaults) comes out the same in every document. Unlike residential lettings, no statutory list limits what a commercial landlord may ask for, so the discipline has to come from your own process.

Companies House: the fields to match against the lease and the signatory

The Companies House service lets anyone look up a company and see, free of charge, its current and resigned officers, registered charges and insolvency information. It records what has been filed; it does not certify that the company is creditworthy.

Match these items:

• Name and company number against the draft lease, the guarantee and the accounts. A near-identical name can belong to a different company, so always work from the number.
• Status. "Active" is not the same as "no action pending": check for a proposal to strike off or an insolvency flag.
• Registered office against the notice address in the lease.
• Officers. The person signing must be a listed director, or hold a written authority; the signatory's ID must carry the same name.
• Charges. A fixed and floating charge over all assets does not bar a lease, but it tells you who ranks ahead of the landlord on a failure.
• Incorporation date. A company a few months old has no accounts to read, so the guarantor carries the risk.

Private companies must normally file accounts within nine months of the financial year end, according to Companies House guidance on annual requirements. Overdue accounts are therefore themselves a data point. The related article on verifying a company registration certificate online covers the document side.

Filed accounts: what to check against the register and the rent

Filed accounts show scale and direction at the last year end, and they are worth little if they belong to a different entity or a stale period. Run these checks:

1. Identity. Name and number identical to the Companies House record.
2. Currency. Year end and filing date. If the last accounts are over twelve months old, ask for management accounts signed by a director.
3. Scale. Divide the annual rent plus service charge by turnover and by net assets. The acceptable level is a policy you set and record, not a legal rule.
4. Filing type. Micro-entity and small-company accounts can omit detail, so a thin set is normal; request a bank reference or management accounts to fill the gap.
5. Plan versus balance sheet. A tenant planning a costly fit-out with negative net assets must explain how it will be funded.

For a start-up, substitute a signed business plan, three to six months of company bank statements and evidence of paid-up share capital, then match the capital to the filed confirmation of incorporation.

The Gazette: insolvency notices the register may not yet show

The Gazette publishes corporate insolvency notices, such as administration, liquidation and moratoria, as well as personal insolvency notices, and offers text search with filters by notice type and date. Search by company name and by number.

The comparison is between the notice and the Companies House status: a winding-up or administration notice against the company number while the record still shows normal trading means the register is catching up, not that the risk is gone. Run the same search for any corporate guarantor and for an individual guarantor's name; a bankruptcy notice for an individual is a decisive mismatch with a guarantee offered on the strength of personal assets.

The Gazette is a notice board, not a credit file. Unpaid invoices and county court judgments that have not led to a formal procedure will not appear.

The guarantor: tie the guarantee to the company and to a real person

A guarantee is only as good as the guarantor's identity, assets and the wording signed. Note that a guarantee must be evidenced in writing under section 4 of the Statute of Frauds 1677 to be enforceable, so a verbal comfort letter does not do the job.

Keep personal data to what the credit decision needs, as the data minimisation principle in UK GDPR guidance from the ICO requires. Rental-fraud patterns are described in the article on fake guarantor documents, written for residential lettings but useful for the same inconsistencies.

What to do when documents do not agree

A mismatch is a question to put in writing, with a document requested in return, not an accusation.

Record what was compared, the date of each search and the reply received. That file protects the landlord in a dispute and speeds the next application.

Questions from landlords and agents

Landlords and agents ask the same things on property forums. The cross-check answers them.

Can I insist on a personal guarantee from the director? Yes, it is a commercial term, not a legal entitlement for either side. The director may decline, and the refusal tells you something.

Is a Companies House record enough? No. It shows the registered position; it needs the accounts, The Gazette and the signatory check behind it.

What do I ask of a newly formed company? A signed plan, company bank statements, evidence of capital paid in and a strong guarantor or rent deposit.

Doing the comparison at volume

When applications stack up, matching the same fields by hand becomes the slow step. CheckFile for real estate compares fields across the documents in a file (names, registration numbers, dates, amounts) and flags the differences for a person to review. It does not claim to establish that a document is authentic. See pricing, the wider industry verification guide and the residential counterpart, the tenant screening guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

What documents should I request from a commercial lease applicant

A current Companies House extract or reference number, the latest filed accounts or signed management accounts, ID and authority for the signatory, and the guarantor's identity and financial evidence. No statutory list applies, so tie each request to a specific comparison.

Does The Gazette show whether a tenant is a credit risk

No. It publishes formal insolvency notices only. It will not reveal late payments or judgments that have not led to a formal procedure, so read it alongside the accounts.

Can a company be checked on Companies House for free

Yes, the service shows officers, charges and insolvency information at no charge. It shows what has been filed and does not confirm that the filings are accurate or that the company is solvent.

What if the guarantor is a company

Run the same checks on the guarantor: Companies House record, filed accounts, Gazette search and written authority for the person signing on its behalf. Compare its net assets with the tenant's before relying on it.