While screening tenants for your Arlington rental property, you’ll conduct a full background check that includes evaluating credit, verifying income, and looking at criminal histories. This due diligence is critical to ensure you are placing a tenant who is qualified to rent your home, financially and from the desire to keep your property and your community safe.
One thing that a number of landlords don’t often pay enough attention to is rental history.
It can be time consuming to validate a tenant’s rental history, and it can be uncomfortable calling or emailing former landlords to ask for information about people who once rented from them.
However, this is a critical part of the screening process, and we recommend that you always verify the rental history your tenant has provided and talk to current and former landlords or
property managers. It’s the best way to get a clear picture of what it will be like to rent to those particular tenants you’re considering.
Here’s how to do it.
Properly verifying rental history begins with the application. You want to ask where your applicants have lived over the last few years, and the information you collect should include addresses and the names and contact information of any landlords or property managers. If they owned a home previously, ask for an address and information on the mortgage company.
Always get a signature on the application that provides consent for a background check.
When credit reports and background checks come back, you’ll want to check the addresses provided by the tenant against the addresses you find on the reports. Any gaps or inconsistent information might raise a red flag. If a tenant didn’t disclose a prior address on the application but it shows up on the credit report, you might wonder why they aren’t sharing that prior residence.
As your screening process progresses, you’ll need to contact those landlord references that your applicant provided.
Start by ensuring you have the correct contact information. If a tenant had a bad experience with a landlord, they might not want you talking to them. You could find they’re sending you to a friend or family member who is posing as a landlord.
Contact the landlord by phone or email. Ask questions such as:
No one will be able to give you more information about a rental experience with a particular tenant than a former landlord. Make sure this is part of your process. And, always ask the landlord if they would be willing to
rent to that tenant again.
We have a consistent and legally compliant tenant screening process in place, which includes conducting a full background check and verifying rental history. If you’d like to hear more about how we do this, please contact our team at Arlington Realty Property Management.
