When you’re a landlord, a property manager, or someone running a rental firm, protecting your assets and investments from bad tenants is important. By partnering with a background check services Utah company, you are a step closer to ensuring that your property is protected, your existing tenants are safe, high tenant turnover is prevented and most importantly, only the responsible tenant applicants are accepted.
More specifically, here are the reasons to book background screening services before accepting any potential tenants for your rental properties.
1. Ensure tenants are financially reliable
A basic background check on tenants includes credit history reports and scores, which provide insights into how responsible the applicants are when it comes to making timely payments to their creditors. You’ll want to make sure your tenants can meet their financial obligations when their monthly rent is due.
2. Prevent costly eviction procedures
A professional background screening solution can include an eviction records search, which looks into the tenant’s history of prior evictions. The search can be nationwide or statewide, or both. You’ll want to avoid having to evict a tenant later on because the eviction process is too costly and time-consuming.
3. Avoid violence and crime on the property
While basic tenant background screening services have SSN verification to ensure that your potential tenants are not using a fake or stolen identity, opting to include nationwide, statewide, and/or federal-level criminal records searches can prove valuable in ensuring your property is free from crime and violence. Take note though that you cannot simply deny housing to applicants with a criminal history. Having accurate court reports, however, will help you (together with local authorities) assess the risk factors of accepting these individuals on your property as well as have a reasonable basis should you deny their applications.
4. Protect the elderly, children, and other vulnerable individuals
A national sex offender search is another valuable feature of a background check solution. In essence, you can deny housing to an offender if your existing multi-unit tenants have a sensitive population such as the elderly and children, and/or if your rental property is near schools, playgrounds, and related facilities. For other rental scenarios, e.g. single-unit rentals, a national sex offender report can provide a legal basis for making a well-informed risk assessment in having a convicted offender as a tenant.
5. Comply with Fair Housing laws
Fair Housing laws protect potential tenants from being denied housing based on discriminatory factors. While you’re allowed to deny applicants based on criminal history, you’ll have to prove that such denial is for the safety of your tenants and property to ensure that it’s not discrimination based on race/color, religion, sex, national origin, disability and/or familial status. Having a comprehensive background screening report is essential in making a sound risk assessment, and if needed, a valid reason to deny the applicant.
6. Eliminate exposure to lawsuits due to negligence
Skipping the background checks on your applicants can be risky to you and your business because you could be sued for negligence if something goes wrong that is caused by your newly accepted tenants. To prevent the risk of exposure, consider including background screening as part of your standard operating procedures (SOP) when it comes to selecting tenants.
Hire background screening professionals to ensure accurate, fast reports
When screening potential tenants, especially when there are many applicants, you’ll want to be able to make a well-informed decision as fast as you can. A professional background screening company has the time, resources, and expertise to scour through available credit, criminal, and eviction databases to quickly deliver accurate reports on your potential tenants.
Intellishield is a background check services in Utah company that provides fast, accurate, and convenient background screening solutions to ensure that you only get the right tenants for your rental properties. Get in touch with us today.
