As a rental property owner, I am sure you have invested a lot of money, sweat, and tears to maintain a decent home or building for others. Running background checks may be the smart move when it comes to proactively protecting your investment. As a private investigator, this author has a long list of clients who rent out properties and perform background checks on each new tenant. The information that can be learned can help prevent many problems in the future. Some items included in a tenant background check include:
- Court documents: bankruptcy filings, liens or judgments, previous evictions
- Criminal record
- Previous addresses and contact information
Your decision to rent or not rent to a certain person may be based solely on these findings. It is safe to say that as a property owner you do not want to rent to someone who has been evicted from another property. This background check should be part of your process when selecting a new tenant, and in most states, the prospective tenant is responsible for paying the check. Also, a background check will give you a better idea of a person’s character than a simple credit check. This is also a smart way to verify any information they have provided in an app.
How to write your own check
There are many background check websites out there. There are also many sites that are total scams. As a general rule, most of the sites that charge a subscription fee are more professional and work very hard to keep their databases up-to-date and complete. You will get the best results for a minimal investment. The easiest way to drive Background Check it’s signing up for a good site and then using the information provided by the prospective tenant in an app to run the search.
