How to Do A Criminal Background Check for Renters | Tenant Background Search
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As a landlord, you definitely won’t trust your house with a bad tenant. That’s why a rental background check is now standard practice in apartment rentals. Among all the background information, criminal history should be your primary focus. So in this post, we’ll share with you how to do a criminal background check on potential renters.
Why should you perform a tenant criminal background check?
Basically, it’s for the safety of your neighborhood. People in the community need to know if the newcomer is a registered sex offender, or if he/she has any history of domestic violence, assault, etc. A criminal background check can prevent you from renting to a person who might put your neighborhood at risk.
Besides, it might also help you:
- Protect your property
- Attract quality renters
- Confirm tenant information
- Reduce eviction risk
If you skip a criminal background check on renters, you could end up with a tenant that you have to evict later on, which might cost $3500 on average and weeks of time. It’s obviously not worth the risk.
Get a full tenant screening report from RentRedi
RentRedi is more of an all-in-one rental property management solution, compared with fast people search tools. Its partnership with TransUnion offers landlords full access to criminal, credit, and eviction history reports for every tenant they screen.
Criminal background check on renters is no difficult task for RentRedi since it has an access to over 370 million criminal records from state and national databases.
Screen tenants now >>
But it’s way beyond that. As a one-stop rental service platform, it helps landlords to:
- Run background checks
- Screen tenants
- Collect rent online
- List properties
- Manage maintenance
Pro tip: Who pays for the screening?
On RentRedi, the cost of screening is borne by the tenant by default. Generally, landlords are allowed to pass the costs of tenant screening on to renters. But it’s up to both of you to decide. The simple answer is to let the tenant pay, because the costs can add up quickly. But by paying for it, you can attract more potentially good tenants who might want to save a few bucks during the process.
How to evaluate a criminal background report properly?
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has a guidance memo to advise landlords on how to use a tenant’s criminal background information when evaluating them as potential renters.
As pointed out by HUD, it’s important to:
“Understand the difference between an arrest vs. a conviction” – An arrest means that an individual was arrested for suspicious activity and taken into custody. Unless there is a conviction following the arrest, having an arrest record doesn’t mean the individual actually committed a crime.
“Know how to properly evaluate a conviction” – Pay attention to the type of conviction, facts or circumstances surrounding the criminal conduct, the age of the individual at the time of the conviction, and evidence of rehabilitation efforts.
Hopefully, that will help you find a quality tenant for your lovely apartment.
There’s no guarantee you’ll find the information you’re looking for with the tools discussed in this article. They all source their information from publicly available data sources, such as county, state and federal courts, government departments, and police records, and those sources may contain incorrect or incomplete data. It’s illegal to use these tools to make decisions about employment, admission, consumer credit, insurance, tenant screening, or any other purpose that would require FCRA compliance. Read the Fair Credit Reporting Act to learn more....
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