Thoroughly Screen All Tenant Applicants
July 16, 2011
You must thoroughly screen all tenant applicants uniformly in order to avoid renting to immature, uncivilized, financially irresponsible, and management-intensive people, better known as tenants from hell! The best way to weed out potentially undesirable tenants is to check, verify, and evaluate their:
1. Credit history.
2. Criminal history.
3. Rental history.
4. Income.
The best way to avoid unwittingly renting to professional deadbeats and career criminals is to obtain consumer and business credit and criminal background reports on all tenant applicants to check, verify, and evaluate their credit and criminal histories. Contact the following credit reporting agencies to obtain credit and criminal background reports on tenant applicants:
Equifax Credit Information Services: www.equifax.com
Trans Union, LLC: www.transunion.com
Experian Consumer Credit Services: www.experian.com
Dunn & Bradstreet Business Information Reports: www.dnb.com
Experian Business Profile Reports: www.experian.com
To help defray the cost of screening tenant applicants, I recommend that you collect a nonrefundable cash rental application fee from all applicants when they submit their rental application. Make certain that you never process a rental application without first collecting the appropriate nonrefundable cash application fee upfront.