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Understanding the Tenant Background Check

Understanding the Tenant Background Check

Being a landlord is both an investment and a job with many facets. Background checks are also an investment, but with huge payoffs that protect your properties and your mental health.

Are you curious as to what information a tenant background check can give you? Let's take a closer look at screening your applicants and what benefits you'll get as a landlord.

Protect Your Properties With a Tenant Background Check

Rental properties are a major investment and unless you know the tenants signing the lease, their finances, rental history, and criminal background could have a major influence as to what type of tenants they will be and how they will treat your property.

Even if you know them, you might want to run a background check to better understand their finances, etc. This check will also confirm that they are who they say they are.

Top landlord tips- make sure that you include a background check consent form in your rental application. It is unlawful to conduct a check without someone's consent. 

Get a General Drift for Their Finances 

One of the worst things that can happen with a rental property is when a tenant can not afford to pay their rent and they fall behind on their monthly payments. Once a tenant falls behind so many months you will have to evict them so that you can then get a tenant in there who can afford it.

Why not avoid all of that drama and get a look into your potential tenant's finances? A background check shows you their earnings from their job and where/when they have fallen behind on other reoccurring payments.

A credit score can tell you a lot about someone. This will be imperative when you are in the position of being owed money.

Checking for Prior Evictions

Tenants that have not paid their rent, have damaged property, or otherwise have not been model tenants may have been evicted from their previous rental. If someone was legally evicted it will be kept on record and will come up when you run their background check.

When there are prior evictions on someone's record you have the choice of discussing the evictions with them or turning down their application due to their dirty record to avoid possibly having to evict them, as well. This comes in handy for both long-term and short-term rentals.

Weeding Through the Criminals

Not all criminal convictions are grounds for denying someone a rental property. And not every conviction is as straightforward as a police report describes it to be.

With that being said, it is nice to know if you have criminals on the lease. Of course, there are plenty of criminals who haven't been caught, so use your judgment and discernment when looking over background check basics.

The Steps Before the Lease

Don't wait until it is too late to find out about your tenant's rental, criminal, and payment history. Run a tenant background check to gather this information and inspect it before presenting a lease for them to sign.

Verandah Property Management handles background checks and so much more. Reach out to us if you are in the market for a property management company that you can trust.

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