A candidate will not agree to a check. What are your rights?
A candidate reads the agreement link and declines, or simply never opens it. You are allowed to take that seriously, and you are not allowed to run checks anyway. Here is the line between the two.
You can decline the hire
Verification is a condition you are entitled to set before you let someone into your home or give them access to money, keys, vehicles or children. If a candidate will not agree to the checks you asked for, you can end the process and hire someone else.
Say it plainly and early. Tell people at the interview stage that the role is subject to identity, address, guarantor and previous employer checks, and that you pay for them. Nobody should discover this after they have resigned from another job.
What you cannot do
You cannot run the checks without agreement. No verification starts on Hirably until the person has opened their private link and agreed on their own phone, and no employer can tick that box for them.
You also cannot use their refusal as a record against them. Declining a check is not a finding, it is not filed anywhere, and it does not follow them to the next employer. The only place it belongs is your own hiring notes.
Never ask a candidate to send their NIN, bank details or documents to you in a chat. If you need their details verified, send the request through the platform so it is consented to and logged.
Ask why before you walk away
Most hesitation is not what employers fear. In our experience the usual reasons are practical: the person does not have their NIN to hand, they share a home and are uneasy about a visit, they do not want a former employer contacted while they are still working there, or they have simply been defrauded before by someone asking for the same information.
Ask which part they are uncomfortable with. A candidate can agree to some checks and not others. Identity and guarantors may be enough for a day role, and you can top up an address visit later if the role changes.
Record the decision properly
Write down what you asked for, the date, and what the person said. If you are a business, keep it with the application rather than in a private chat, so a later question about fairness has an answer.
Where a request expires without a response, the case simply closes on Hirably. Nothing is reported, and you have not paid for checks that never ran. See what a worker is entitled to for the other side of the same conversation.