Thirty years ago rental property owners, including me at the time, never paid much attention to tenant background screening or background checks. In fact most of us used a short rform of lease or rental selection at a local stationary store that basically only required a few bits of personal information with a signature at the bottom of the one page. Oh, boy, have things changed. In today’s leasing market property owners are suspicious of humans, or should be. Now it’s trust but verify, phone calls on tenant history, and a current credit report from all three reporting agencies. Next thing you know, property owners will be required of new tenants to cut a deck of cards and give a blood sample.

Of course there are some landlords and property owners with investments in the lower income parts of major cities who participate a nihilistic approach and could care less about a tenant home check or tenant verification of any type and any upfront rental deposit is ignored as well. Just rent it and forget it, baby. These landlords rent on a month-to-month basis and if the rent is not paid and a tenant eviction looms on the horizon, a 30 day notice to vacate is presented to the tenant to pay or quit. Some property owners have been known to simply use an acrimonious tone to the tenant inserting the word police or sheriff which makes the tenant think twice about damaging the rental unit.

One exception to property owners and landlords having to get a migraine over chasing tenant evictions, tenant leasing, background screening, tenant checks, tenant history, tenant verification of employment or a 10 year tenant background check is receiving the Federal Government concerned via the Section 8 rental program. Section 8 is low income housing using a voucher system to income-qualified rental units. Section 8, in advance, pretty much has all the tenant personal information on hand before contacting landlords or property owners on vacant units that may be available to rent. The government also shares in part paying a portion of the rent on behalf of the tenant. One of the drawbacks on this program is the amount of allowable rent charged to the tenant by the owner.

In any tenant screening process a landlord or owner is NOT required to rent to any one person or family. However, discrimination is profligate and not tolerated. There are generally two forms used when renting or leasing an income unit: a month-to-month rental agreement and landlord and tenant agreement to lease. When either form is completed by a tenant a landlord or owner should have in hand every possible thing to know about the future tenant including, but not limited to, picture drivers license, DOB, employment in the past and present, banking information, financial obligations, personal references, and much more.

It is important to know whether or not a person that is going to be taking residence in a home that you own, a room in a home that you are currently living in or an apartment arrangement is stable and under control. You would want to know if there are underlying issues with these people to ensure that the safety of your property and even your own situation is secure by having these tenants in your home

The big process is known as tenant screening and it can be performed through several services. The process allows for landlords and property owners to learn more about current tenants and possible future tenants who are interested in renting your property. There are two main options available to look into when running a personal investigation of the individuals who plan on living within your property or living arrangement. The first is a national criminal search and the second is a national eviction search.

National criminal search is a resource that allows landlords to enter the names or alias of a person who you believe needs to be checked out. The service runs a search and provides any and all results which may be tied to the possible tenant. This can provide information such as jail time and what they were sent to jail for. Any negative information which may be influential to your decision to whether or not allow the individual to rent from you is provided. Tenant screening of this manner is necessary to protect your property.

Tenant screening through a national eviction search is also one of the best ways to weed out bad tenants from the list. Evictions occur for several reasons such as destruction of property, overdue rent or complaints from neighbors and authorities. These eviction logs are important because it lowers their image and integrity, making them a liability because they may cause damages or skip too many payments. The national eviction search may pull up results for people with similar names as well so it is important to make sure the possible tenants are the ones who are listed in the search before accepting or declining their status as a tenant.

There are options available for a combined search which makes it possible to get the national criminal search and the national eviction search done for a discounted rate. This covers both of the possible information sources which could directly affect your decision on accepting new tenants or learning about the possible problems you could face with existing tenants.