Tenant Screening and Criminal Background Checks
Sunday, July 19th, 2009Oh! is this so important!
Don’t let their previous landlords nightmare become your reality!
Let me share a story with you. Our last nightmare starts when I was out of town. We had a unit that had been vacant for about 4 months, in the winter time. Needless to say, we wanted to get it rented.
My assistant shows the property to a potential tenant, everything sounds good, and her application looks good. She’s even a foster parent! Of course, I assume that all of the background checks have been done as usual and we let the tenant move in with 1st month’s rent and deposit.
The next thing that I find out is that I am still getting electric bills, because she gave us a bogus confirmation number for her utilities. Then rent doesn’t come in the mail. I call the tenant, of course she said that she mailed a money order. (This was just the beginning)
This is when I go through the file and notice that we don’t have any screening or background checks completed on this person. I run some checks, and find out that she came to us off of an eviction!
After 4 months we finally are able to get her out. The unit was not left in very good condition.
Long story short, always, always get background checks
Cost us 4 months rent, damages, court costs, attorney fees and holding costs!











