It is no secret that house‑hunting in Bengaluru has become an exercise in background verification rather than a rental transaction. Recently, however, a software engineer’s experience has raised the bar on how bizarre the city’s landlords can get while “verifying” their prospective tenants.
A Gojek software engineer has shared on Grapevine that a landlord asked for his manager’s phone number, six months of bank statements, and a character certificate from HR — all to rent a 1BHK.
“A damp 1BHK with visible wall seepage,” the techie wrote, adding: “I am trying to rent a house, not adopt a child.”
He described the demands as “borderline illegal” and added that he was close to losing his mind.
What’s more, the techie really did approach his HR manager for a character certificate. “She literally just laughed in my face,” he said, adding, “this city is wild.”
‘More checks than a marriage proposal’
The post quickly drew reactions from other professionals on the platform, many of whom said similar background checks had become common.
One consultant quipped that landlords now conduct “more checks than if you were going to marry their daughters,” while another software engineer remarked that “a marriage proposal would require way less paperwork at this point.”
Others advised tenants to walk away from such deals altogether, warning that intrusive screening often translates into worse interference after tenants move in.
Landlords cite risk, tenants point to power imbalance
Among the responses were also comments defending landlords, with one user claiming that India’s rental laws make it extremely difficult to evict non‑paying tenants, prompting owners to aggressively vet renters in advance. Others said the city’s rental ecosystem increasingly treats salaried professionals as high‑risk applicants, despite stable incomes and corporate employment.
Part of a larger pattern
In other recent cases of bizarre demands made by Bengaluru landlords, a tenant was asked to pay Rs 80,000 extra for “sunlight”, another tenant was being pressured to provide security deposits running up to 10 times the monthly rent, and in one case, a Canadian content creator claimed a landlord demanded a Rs 23 lakh deposit for a rental apartment.