Why Screen Tenant’s Criminal History?
Protect Your Property and the Community
Prescreening tenants is a common practice for smart landlords. Checking an applicant’s rental history and credit background are both vital to your rental property business’s success. Before renting to a new tenant, you should know if they are credit worthy or have been evicted by previous landlords.
Credit checks and previous rental history checks can help protect landlords against financial losses. They are the best way to predict whether a tenant will pay rent on time. But as a landlord, you are responsible for more than just your own financial protection.
Keeping crime out of rental properties is a goal every landlord shares. By failing to conduct criminal background checks on potential tenants, landlords risk bringing harm to other tenants and the residents of surrounding neighborhoods. No landlord wants to be responsible for a crime against a family, a child, or a business committed by their tenant.
And crime hurts more than just its direct victims. Quality of life is affected when people are afraid to go outside. Neighborhood home values and rents drop when crime rates go up. Increased crime puts everyone at more risk, including residents, pedestrians, drivers, business owners, and police.
There is no way to prevent a tenant from committing a crime. And since past behavior is a good indicator of future behavior, knowing what’s in a potential tenant’s criminal past is the best way to keep crime out of your property. Conduct a criminal background check on every tenant applicant.