Tips for Doing Background Checks for Landlords

Landlords are often doing tenant credit checks. But background checks for landlords go beyond the credit check. Here are some tips for landlords to use when they have a potential tenant.

• Background/credit check – Make sure that you have a way to check someone’s background and credit before you advertise for a renter.  There are a lot of places that you can turn to help you with this.
• Pet/security deposit – Figure out the amount that you want for your security deposit plus an additional deposit for pets, if you are allowing pets.
• Advertisement – When you are posting the advertisement, disclose the rent, security, and pet amounts, state clearly that there will be a background and credit check so that they know ahead of time.
• Application – Make sure that you tell the prospective tenant that there’s going to be a fee that they will have to submit along with their application if the person’s 18 or older.  If the person doesn’t pay the fee, don’t consider their application. Go on to the next one. You shouldn’t have to pay that fee, have the person pay it.

Reference checking is also really important for the landlords to do since they need to know if the person is a good tenant. For those landlords who want someone to do their background checks for them, a good company to consider is Tenant Screening Services, LLC. They have a lot of experience with doing background checks for employment as well as for landlords.