Tenant Screening is the process of evaluating a potential tenant before accepting their application to rent your property. Tenant Screening typically consists of looking into the applicant’s credit history, rental history, criminal record, housing history, employment status and more. Manual tenant screening can be time-consuming and often will not capture the whole picture; using property management software is an efficient and reliable way to ensure you’re doing your due diligence.

Landlords and Property Managers should always screen their tenants for security and peace of mind. Obtaining credit and background checks will help you to assess the likelihood that the tenant will fulfill the terms of the lease or rental agreement, and how likely they are to take excellent care of your property. For instance, if an applicant has a history of credit card debt, this may indicate that they have trouble making payments on time, which is a big issue when rent is due each month.

◦ Through thorough tenant screening, you reduce your financial risk substantially. Tenant Screening allows you to identify the residents who are most likely to pay rent on time, and least likely to need to be evicted. Additionally, obtaining a background report will shed light onto any criminal history within the past 7 years. ◦ After receiving a screening report, you should know: ▪ If the tenant has a history of late payments at other properties. ▪ If the tenant has any frozen accounts or open collections. ▪ If the tenant will fit safely into your community. ◦ By trusting the tenant screening process, you are ensuring that you have your rent in hand on time each month, your property is less likely to be damaged, and that you won’t have to spend precious time and money fighting with processing evictions for problem residents.

The most important item to check is a tenant's credit history. This will confirm that the social security number the applicant provided is valid, and will identify aliases and previous addresses that are associated with an applicant. A Credit Report typically covers liens, previous bankruptcies, and collections. A Credit Report from CreditLink will also show you the renter’s pattern of payments on open and closed lines of credit. Many shrewd landlords and property managers will also check the Eviction history or potential Criminal Background of their prospective tenant to verify information willfully provided, or to preemptively safeguard their community and property. CreditLink is here to help ensure that you avoid the risk of needing to evict by providing the information necessary to choose the right tenants for your properties.