The bad news is tenant screening does not guarantee a tenant will always pay his or her rent on time. The good news is tenant screening will help to filter out bad applicants. Tenant screening allows you to learn an applicant may be a difficult tenant before you learn this on a first-hand basis.

Before I started doing tenant background checks I had a young couple with a two year old son. They were extremely polite, very articulate and well-dressed. They talked extensively about their jobs and how they were both recently promoted and worked for the same company for over five years. They even produced copies of pay stubs. They offered to put down a full month’s deposit and wanted to move in less than two days later. Needless to say I was impressed by this couple. I had them complete an application, accepted their deposit, signed a lease and gave them the keys to the front door.

Two months later this couple stopped paying rent. They had every excuse imaginable as to why they could not pay the rent on time and when they would pay. The date they promised to pay the rent came and went and all I got was more excuses. Eventually I decided to evict them for non payment of rent. About this time I started doing tenant credit checks. On a whim I decided to do a check on this young couple. It turned out they had been evicted five times in the previous 22 months. When they applied to rent my house, they were in the process of being evicted from their current residence which is why they needed to move in in less than two days. If I had done a tenant check, I would never have rented to this couple which would have saved me from months of frustration and lost income.

Every state has laws restricting what you can and cannot do for a background check. In addition there are federal laws that prohibit discriminating against a potential applicant based on sex, religion, age or national origin. Every landlord needs to be aware of the requirements under both state and federal law.

A bad tenant can do extensive damage to your property not including the loss of rental income. Doing a background check on a tenant can be labor intensive if you are verifying their employment, checking for prior evictions and pulling their credit. The time spent on doing a check on a tenant pales in comparison to the time spent on evicting bad tenants and paying to rehab any damages they cause to your property. Doing a tenant check costs less than renting to a bad tenant.

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Filed under: Landlording • Property Management

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