The document discusses tips for screening tenants as a property manager. It recommends collecting a tenant's full name, date of birth, social security number, current and previous addresses, employment and landlord references to perform thorough background checks. The most important screening reports are noted as the credit report, criminal history search, previous landlord verification and employment verification. Collecting comprehensive application information and running these key screening reports can help property managers select qualified tenants efficiently and reduce troubles down the road.

1. Tenant Screening 411 What Info You Should Really Check
by Kelly Gontarski
July 23, 2010
StarPointTenantScreening.com
With more rental property on the market than ever before, property managers are at their busiest.
From showing properties to handling maintenance issues, you’ve got your hands full. The last thing you
need is troublesome tenants on top of your daily stresses. Screening tenants thoroughly not only helps
you make the best business decisions possible, it also creates a safer, happier living experience for
everyone in the property’s community.
As the owner of StarPoint Tenant Screening, I’ve seen a lot of different information products over the
last 10 years. It can get confusing for busy property managers to weed through it all. Here we’ll take a
quick walk through the basics of the tenant screening process and give you some tips to help you save
time, money and energy.
The Tenant Application
Whether you have an online application on your website or a standard form, make it as thorough as
possible. This is a situation where more is definitely better. I’ve had many property managers that have
had to waste time (which equals money) to track down applicants for additional information so the
proper background screening information can be completed. Attached is a thorough application sample
that includes all the items below.
Critical data:
First, middle and last name. Get that middle name! It can be a critical factor in returning the correct
criminal information on an applicant. Surprisingly criminal and correctional records rarely contain a
social security number for the offender. They typically have a fist name, middle name or initial, last
name and the date of birth listed. By submitting both the middle name and data of birth, you ensure
you’ll get the most accurate records back on your applicant.
Date of Birth. Like the middle name, providing the date of birth will keep you from getting inaccurate
results on your criminal record searches.
Social Security Number. If you want to pull a credit report, employment verification or ID verification on
an applicant, the social is a must. The credit bureaus cannot supply any data regarding your applicant’s
credit history without this 9 digit number. Also, most employers will not verify any employment
information without it nor can you verify identity with a social security database which can be valuable
in some cases. Be sure that you can make out the numbers on a hand written application. I’ve seen too
many property managers input wrong numbers from deciphering handwriting and then they get no data
back on the reports.

2. Current Address. The credit bureaus require a current address be submitted with a request for a credit
report. This is also necessary to verify the applicant’s history with the previous landlord.
Previous Landlord Information. One of the best sources for information on what kind of tenant you
might have is the previous landlord. In processing these reports landlords have told me everything from
“They paid early and made property improvements” to “their pet ruined the property and I would never
rent to them again”.
Employment Information. This is critical if you want to verify the applicant’s current employment and
salary. It’s also just good data to have in your data base if you choose to rent to them and need to
contact them at work.
Signed Release/Disclosure. It is legally necessary to include a release/disclosure statement on your
tenant application or as a separate document and the statement must be acknowledged with the
tenant’s signature and date. It is a violation of the FCRA to request a consumer report without their
consent. A consumer report can be a credit report or any prepared background or reference report.
Now Which Screening Reports do I Run and How?
My company like others offers a wide variety of tenant screening reports and searches. We pride
ourselves in not overselling our clients. We want you to get what you need without ordering
unnecessary data and increasing your costs. You’ve got a business to run. Here I’ll explain and
recommend various reports.
Credit Report: I tell all my clients to start here. There is no better way to get an accurate indicator of an
applicant’s probability to pay rent on time than the credit report. You’ll instantly get their entire credit
history including their monthly payment obligations, number of collection accounts, amount of past due
accounts and any liens of judgments on their file such as bankruptcies, etc. Evictions can show up on the
credit report as a public record judgment, but it’s rare. The Eviction Report is your best bet to catch a
filing but frankly I think the Previous Landlord Verification is more valuable. We’ll talk more about that
below.
Criminal Searches: The criminal search can be the most important report to run next to the credit
report. It’s a smart choice to do your due diligence when placing a tenant. These reports are instant,
inexpensive and the data is abundant. You get an instant snap shot of an applicant’s criminal history
from felonies and misdemeanors, to traffic violations and sex offender data. The draw back? As I
mentioned earlier surprisingly criminal and correctional records rarely contain a social security number
for the offender. This creates a problem on applicant searches for common names like John Smith. You
can get a flood of records that match the name. By entering the middle name and data of birth, you can
ensure you’ll get the most accurate records back on your applicant. The screening system my company
provides also allows you to filter the data returned. You can view all data, or just records less than 10
years old plus you can view supplemental data for the offenses such as sentencing dates, prosecutor
information and arrest dates.
Eviction Reports: The eviction report searches court records for eviction filings and reports them
whether the tenant was judged or not. Again, this report is searched by name and date of birth only as
social security numbers are not entered on the eviction filing.

3. Previous Landlord Verifications: I personally think the previous landlord verification is more useful than
the eviction report. With this verification, the tenant’s landlord is personally contact by a company like
mine and asked to verify lease dates, rent amount, if there were any late payments or returned checks,
whether they would rent to the tenant again and more. We see that most landlord complaints are not
severe enough for them to evict the tenant, but they are negative enough for them to never rent to the
tenant again.
Employment Verification: This is a very important report which verifies the tenant has the salary they
stated on their application and can meet your income to rent ratio criteria. The employer is personally
contacted by a company like mine and asked to verify the applicant’s hire date, current status and
salary.
ID Verification/SSN Verification: I would not run this report if you are also running a credit report as
the social security number is verified by the credit bureaus. However if you are not running a credit
report it can be useful to determine the applicant is who they claim to be.
All of the reports above can be ordered conveniently online with most vendors, including my company,
StarPoint Tenant Screening. A very thorough screening can easily be done inexpensively and quickly
helping you make sound decisions quickly. Making good tenant selections makes for a more profitable
bottom line and a lot less headaches.
Happy renting from StarPoint Tenant Screening!