Credit check policy

01 · Scope of checks

What checks are run

When you apply for a rental property through Pleks, a comprehensive background and credit check is performed as part of the Stage 2 application process. These checks query the following sources:

The results of these checks form part of your FitScore — a weighted applicant rating that the agency uses to evaluate your suitability for the property. FitScore combines bureau data with income affordability and employment verification. No single factor is automatically disqualifying.

Automated decisions: Pleks does not make automated decisions about applicants. FitScore is assistive only — the agency or landlord reviews the underlying data and makes the final tenancy decision. No outcome is triggered automatically by any score threshold. POPIA s71(1) prohibits automated decisions with legal or material consequences except in limited circumstances; Pleks does not rely on any of those exceptions. If you believe an automated decision was nonetheless taken, your POPIA · S71(2) rights apply: you may make representations to the agency and request the underlying logic of the decision. Contact our Information Officer.

Minors: Credit checks are not performed on minors. If your application includes household members under 18, no bureau query is run for them.

02 · Service provider

Who runs the checks

All credit and background checks are conducted by Searchworx (Pty) Ltd, a registered credit bureau intermediary regulated under the National Credit Act 34 of 2005 (ss 43–46) and the Credit Bureau Code of Conduct issued under POPIA (October 2020). Pleks initiates the credit check on instruction of the agency, receives the report from the service provider, stores it on its infrastructure, generates a derivative FitScore (B5 of the POPIA processing register), and makes the result available to the agency. Throughout, Pleks acts as an Operator on behalf of the agency under the data-processing terms in the Pleks Terms of Service §09; the agency is the Responsible Party for the application data. Credit check results are made available to the agency for the sole purpose of evaluating your application. Where an agency manages the property, the agency is the Responsible Party and the landlord receives the result only on the agency’s instruction. Where a landlord uses Pleks directly without an agency, the landlord is the Responsible Party for the application data.

The service provider is bound by its own regulatory obligations regarding the handling of your personal information, including obligations under the NCA, the POPIA, the Credit Bureau Code of Conduct, and the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA) as an accountable institution.

03 · Application fee

The application fee

A once-off application fee is charged per credit check bundle. This fee covers all bureau queries listed in section 01 and is paid by the applicant at the time of progressing to Stage 2 of the application. The current fee is displayed on the application screen before you are asked to pay. Your explicit consent is obtained first, and payment follows it. Payment commences the screening service and triggers the screening process.

• The screening service commences upon successful payment. The screening checks are then initiated and the resulting reports are generated as part of that service. Fees are not refundable merely because the applicant changes their mind after screening has commenced, subject to any rights or remedies that cannot lawfully be excluded.
• If a bureau or screening provider experiences a technical failure and, after reasonable retries, no screening report is generated, Pleks will refund the screening fee to the extent required by applicable law.
• The fee is paid directly by the applicant — the agency using Pleks does not pay for your check.
• Where an application has more than one party, each party completes the consent process individually — one party cannot consent on behalf of another — and pays the screening fee for their own check, shown before payment. Each party’s checks are run separately. Each party’s individual screening report is made available to the agency for evaluation and is never disclosed to another party. The consolidated assessment for the application, based on the parts that were completed, is shown to every party who completed their part. The consolidated assessment supports the agency's evaluation; it is not a decision on the application.
• If your application is withdrawn before Stage 2, no fee is charged — credit checks are only triggered when you choose to proceed.

04 · Legal basis

Legal basis under POPIA

Credit checks are processed on the basis of your explicit consent under POPIA · S11(1)(a) and the Credit Bureau Code of Conduct issued under POPIA (October 2020). Before any check is initiated, you will be asked to read this policy and provide your informed consent via a signed digital consent form — no check will be performed without it. The NCA establishes the regulatory framework for credit bureaus (ss 43–46) and your right to access and challenge credit records (NCA · S72), but does not itself impose the consent requirement for bureau enquiries — that flows from POPIA and the Credit Bureau Code. NCA s69 establishes the National Register of Credit Agreements and is not the basis for bureau enquiries.

Consequences of not consenting: If you do not consent to the credit check, your application cannot proceed to Stage 2. The agency may decline your application on that basis. You retain the right to apply through another channel that does not require a bureau check, including agencies that use different screening methods. Under POPIA · S18, you are entitled to know these consequences before deciding whether to consent.

Pleks retains a timestamped record of your consent in our audit log for accountability purposes, as required by POPIA · S17 (Documentation). You may request a copy of your consent records by contacting our Information Officer.

05 · Your rights

Your rights

As the subject of a credit check, you have the following rights under South African law:

• Right of access (POPIA s23). Request a copy of the personal information Pleks holds about you, including the credit report and FitScore generated for your application. A free copy of the report is available on request — contact our Information Officer.
• Right to correction (POPIA s24). Request correction or deletion of inaccurate, misleading, outdated, or incomplete personal information held by Pleks. Contact our Information Officer or use the in-platform subject-rights dashboard.
• Right to deletion / restriction (POPIA s25). Request destruction or deletion of personal information Pleks is no longer authorised to retain. Statutory retention obligations (see §07) may prevent immediate deletion; Pleks will explain any basis for retention that continues after a request.
• Right to object (POPIA s11(3)). Where any processing relies on legitimate interest, you may object on grounds relating to your particular situation. Credit check processing relies on s11(1)(a) consent — so withdrawal of consent (§06) is the primary mechanism; objection under s11(3) applies to any downstream legitimate-interest processing such as the AI-assisted rationale narrative generated alongside FitScore.
• Bureau dispute (NCA s72). If you believe information in the report is inaccurate, you may lodge a dispute directly with the relevant bureau. Bureaus are required to investigate and respond within 20 business days. Contact details: TransUnion 0861 482 482; Experian 0861 105 665; Compuscan 0861 514 131; XDS 0860 937 000; TPN 0861 876 000.
• Automated-decision rights (POPIA s71(2)). Pleks does not make automated decisions about applicants (see §01). If you believe an automated decision was nonetheless taken, you may make representations to the agency and request the underlying logic of the decision. Contact our Information Officer to initiate this.
• Complaint to the Information Regulator. You may lodge a complaint about data handling with the Information Regulator under POPIA s74, or apply to court under s99, at any time — independently of any response from Pleks or the agency.

06 · Withdrawal of consent

Withdrawing consent

Once a credit check has been initiated and the bureau queries submitted, consent cannot be retrospectively withdrawn for that specific check — the data has already been accessed and a report generated. This is an inherent limitation of the bureau query process, not a choice made by Pleks.

You may, however, withdraw consent for any future checks or processing of your information by contacting us at legal@pleks.co.za. Withdrawal of consent for future processing will not affect the lawfulness of processing that occurred before withdrawal. Withdrawal of consent will:

• (a) prevent any future bureau queries being run against your records;
• (b) require the agency to suspend further use of the existing report in evaluating your application — the agency may then decline the application on the basis of incomplete information; and
• (c) trigger a deletion request under POPIA · S25 for the stored report data, subject to the applicable statutory retention windows set out in §07.

07 · Retention

How long we keep it

Credit check results and associated personal information are retained as follows:

After the applicable retention period, credit check data is deleted from production systems and excluded from backup retention thereafter. For the full retention schedule across all data categories, see our Privacy Policy.

If an inconsistency exists between this Credit Check Policy and the Pleks Terms of Service, the Terms of Service prevail unless mandatory law requires otherwise.

NCA intermediary records: The licensed credit bureau intermediary is subject to bureau-industry retention obligations under the National Credit Regulations. This obligation rests with the service provider. Our 10-year consent audit log (above) satisfies any parallel accountability obligation on Pleks’s side. The 90-day deletion period for declined-application results applies to the credit report data held by Pleks — it does not affect the service provider’s separate intermediary records.