Tenant Screening Services and Background Checks

Tenant Screening discussed in Landlord Seminar

Police departments from Richland and Kennewick in the Tri-State Area conducting a landlord training and instruction seminar for approximately fifty two people.  Tenant Screening and tenant background checks were one topic of discussion, including fire codes and crime, including graffiti and drugs.

“This is very beneficial. It gives us an opportunity to meet with community police departments, and other agencies, to help us to do our jobs better,” said Rhonda Aldridge, Santiago Communities.

Tenant Screening is one of the best ways to remove drugs and graffiti from your landlord premises.  Tenant Screening is a preventative measure which will protect you against those with a previous criminal record and if you conduct tenant screening credit reports, will alert you to those tenants who have horrible personal credit and do not have the financial responsibility to pay their rent every month.   Hopefully the seminar including information about conducting tenant background checks as well the steps involved in ordering tenant credit reports with FICO Score.

New ordinance requires Stewartville landlords to run background checks

Should background checks be required for all prospective tenants? Post-Bulletin reports that Stewartville, MN city council has passed an “ordinance requiring all landlords to conduct background checks on prospective renters”  The impetus for the ordinance appears to be that a neighboring city Rochester, recently passed the same ordinance.  Apparently, the citizens of Stewartville believe that the background checks in Rochester are directly responsible for a rise in crime in Stewartville.

“Their ordinance worked,” Dick Uptagrafft said. “It chased people out of Rochester and into smaller communities like ours.”

Interesting to see that there is a perceived value in the background check.  The article doesn’t mention the type of background check, and it is worth noting that all background checks are not equal.  For tenant screening, it is important to verify your candidate’s identity before conducting a criminal check.  Conducting a tenant credit report will provide you with the prospective tenants full name and address history.   It is important to run a full background check on your candidate’s name and any aliases covered. 

The article also mentions:

If a background check comes back negative, it helps the landlord avoid going through the process of evicting a bad tenant in the future, Stewartville city administrator Bill Schimmel Jr. said.

Hopefully the residences of Stewartville will see a drop in crime.   

Fort Collins seeing a rise in White Collar Securities Crimes

The Coloradoan reported that the present economic situation may be driving a rise in white collar investment and securities scams. 

The warning comes amid multiple local high-profile prosecutions of accused Ponzi scheme architects who face charges of running pyramid scams by taking money from new investors to pay off older ones.

Also facing problems are landlords and property managers who are on the front lines in the economic downtown. 

An emerging scam Baker said he’s seeing is one in which a would-be renter sends a landlord a check for a deposit but “accidentally” writes it for too much. The renter asks the landlord to cash what will turn out to be a fictitious check and wire the “extra” to them.

Best Practices in tenant screening include running your prospective tenants credit report and FICO Score.  The results of the tenant credit report will provide you with a window into their fiduciary responsibility.  You can see their revolving credit obligations and determine whether this tenant is capable of making the rent every month.  Remember it’s probably better to let the apartment go vacant for another week then renting the unit to an unscrupulous tenant. The financial costs of evictions are painful lessons that will make you wish you ran that credit report. 

Tenant Checker is For All Your Tenant Needs

Whether you are a large industrial and commercial landlord with offices all over the country, or the tenant with a house or a couple of apartments to rent out, Tenant Checker is designed to service all your needs.
Tenant Checker is powered by Corra of the Corra Group, the company responsible for employment background checks and corporate investigation and research.
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Non-profit groups helps Baltimore landlords & tenants

Baltimore Sun wrote an interesting piece about a non-profit group that counsels landlords and tenants about the finer points of local tenant laws.

Baltimore Neighborhoods stressed the importance of knowing the difference between essential services and common repairs, especially during winter. Heating is an essential repair and local laws require all rental properties to have working heating. The group advised landlords that furnaces and heaters are not an easy fix, and to plan accordingly for your tenants.

The article also spoke about the current state of the real estate economy:

“In these housing-slump times, when it’s easier to rent than sell, “there are a lot more people becoming landlords than getting out of the business, and there are a lot of people becoming landlords who have no clue of what the laws are.”

New landlords are advised to protect themselves by conducting background checks on all new prospective tenants. Checking our a new tenant’s credit history, criminal history, and employment status will a new landlord make the safe decision about who will be living on their property.

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