Doing a tenant background check is not an assurance that you can pick the good apples and absolutely avoid the rotten ones. Depending on how you do your probe, some undesirable applicants may successfully find a way into your property due to loopholes in the way you weed out applicants. Here are some common things that newbie landlords should take care of while doing a tenant background check.
1. Run a tenant background check on every tenant without discrimination
Make sure to run a background check on every prospective tenant without discrimination to keep yourself safe at the hands of law.
2. Know your rights as a landlord
The legal battles you may fight as a landlord doing a background check is not limited to the one mentioned above. That’s why it is important for you to know your rights, such as your right to choose tenant who has the financial capacity to pay rent on time and who can meet the requirements and terms of the rental agreement.
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3. Ask the right questions
Most landlords do the tenant background check themselves, and if they are not too experienced with the process, they miss covering all the bases. Newbie landlords may not know how to ask the right questions to get the pertinent details of the applicant and to fish out any signs of trouble before it’s too late.
4. Don’t miss any of the essentials in a tenant background check
You run a tenant background check to ensure that the person you welcome into your property is not a threat to society or, at least to the neighborhood, responsible enough to take care of your property and has the financial capacity to pay rent. Hence, your tenant background check process must include a credit check, a probe into prior rental or home ownership, an employment inquiry, and a criminal history check.
5. Verify the applicants’ words
Doing a background check does not stop at asking the right questions. You have to make sure that the answers are true so you need to verify these. You can do the verification yourself but it would require some time and effort on your part. You can save yourself the hassle by hiring a tenant verification service
Source : tenantscreening
