Screening prospective tenants is an essential responsibility of private landlords. It may be tempting to allow the first interested tenant to move into the rental, but the advantages will not outweigh the disadvantages if a landlord skips conducting tenant checks. These tenants are going to live on the property for months or even years. It is wise to know a little bit about the person before giving him the keys and signing a lease.
Background checks, whether conducted personally by the property manager or by professional tenant screening services (like MyScreeningReport), allow property owners to get an idea of the type of people they are allowing to rent the property. Tenant screening allows property managers to ensure that the properties they are managing are rented to responsible adults. The chances of damage or problems with non-payment of rent are significantly reduced when using tenant screening services.
Background checks provide valuable information about prospective tenants. A typical check involves looking in court system records to verify that the tenant doesn’t have a history of eviction with any previous landlords. It also requires looking into criminal records to verify that a tenant doesn’t have any serious criminal charges against him.
Financial responsibility is another desirable trait that property managers look for with prospective tenants. Tenant screening services get permission to conduct a credit check to verify that there are no delinquent accounts on record for the individual. Another way for a property manager to check for financial responsibility is to call previous landlords to verify that there were no problems with rent payments being late.
Background checks help property managers avoid legal troubles, reduce the risk of fraud and decrease the chances of dealing with income loss due to one or more vacant properties.
Source : shawnwong
