Tenant Screening: Ask This ONE Question

We all know them: The tenants from you know where. Making the right decision on whether a tenant lives in your property is absolutely crucial to your success as a landlord. Make the wrong decision and your life (and your pocketbook) will be miserable. But guess what? There is one question, if asked, will give you a huge success rate in picking a good tenant.

Run a criminal background check on each and every applicant who will live in the property. Someone who has had problems with the law will bring those problems with them wherever they move. (Many times, these problems are the very reason they are moving.) You can avoid most major issues by not allowing anyone who has broken the law to live in your property.

When the prospect first calls or emails expressing interest in your property, let them know that you have several criteria for renting and the first is that there can be no criminal background. Tell them you will be running a criminal background check. Give them any other criteria and then ask them if they'd still like to set up a showing, or if they need to think about it. Nine times out of ten, if there is a criminal background, they'll say they'll think about it and not call you back. So you have avoided a poor tenant before you've spent any time or energy on them.

Then there's the application itself. In order to run a criminal background check on an applicant, they must give their consent in writing for you to do so. This serves as a kind of check and balance, actually. If a girlfriend, or husband, or roommate is unwilling to fill out the application, it's a huge red flag. Often it's because the person has a problem background.

When someone breaks the law, it is public information and therefore accessible to the public (if the person is over the age of 18). Some states make it more difficult than others to get the information, but there are a number of online service companies that will run a criminal background check. Find out how long the prospective tenant(s) have been in your state through casual conversation when you first meet them. If it hasn't been long (less than two years), find out where they lived before moving to your state. The best thing you can do is run a state-specific criminal background check, versus a nationwide check (more could be missed).

If there have been crimes committed and you can check the specifics, you can decide whether to make any exceptions. For instance, you might be interviewing a 40 year old man who had one DUI when he was 19 years old, and nothing else. The chances are good that from this one perspective, anyway, he'll be ok. On the other hand, if he has had two or three DUI's you don't want him living in your property. If you can't check the specifics, then follow this rule: NO criminal background, of any kind.

Now that you know the most important question to ask when making a decision about a prospective tenant, the next time you screen, run a criminal background check. Specifically, tell them in the beginning that you will be running the check, get permission on the application to run it, and when making your decision, be careful about what kind of criminal background that you will allow, if any. Run a criminal background check and you'll have gone a long way in avoiding the renters from you know where!

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