Evictions are troublesome and stressful for both tenants and landlords. For tenants, an eviction will negatively affect their credit standing so it will be a hindrance for them to be approved by a new landlord. For landlords, they would have to deal with a vacancy and go through a tedious process of screening potential tenants and reviewing their credit history.

Before you deal with an eviction, these are a few pieces of information that will shed light on how eviction can affect the parties involved.

How will an eviction reflect in credit reports?

Once a landlord reports the eviction to a credit bureau, it will appear on the evicted tenant’s credit report.

Typically, a public court processes an eviction. Because of this, an eviction will be written under the “public records” section of the report.

Another way the eviction will appear on credit reports is if the landlord submits unpaid rent dues to a collection agency who will then forward the information to major credit bureaus.

Since credit scores are often used as a basis for a tenant application to be approved, this will be more difficult for an evicted tenant to find a new place to rent 

When will an eviction appear on a credit report?

After receiving judgment for the eviction, it would take 30-60 days for it to reflect in the evicted tenant’s credit.

This gives a tenant time to find a new unit before his credit report will hinder his application for tenancy.

Landlords, however, can use additional documents as a basis in screening tenant applications so they can check for other red flags.

Landlords should get a better sense of who the tenant they will rent for not only to avoid delayed payments, but also to avoid destructive tenants or those that have a history of criminal activity.

You were evicted. What do you do next?

If you were evicted, especially if it’s due to failure to pay rent, it’s still possible for you to find a rental space in the future.

Even though landlords usually prefer to have their units rented by someone with a clean credit record, it is not their sole basis.

An eviction record will stay in a credit report for seven years, so a tenant with a history of being evicted can try other means of gaining the trust of a new landlord.

You can provide proof of steady income or have a cosigner in your leasing agreement who will be responsible to pay if you’ll have unpaid rent in the future. If you have enough money in your bank accounts, it can be a good basis for your financial capacity as well.

If you are a landlord, try to reconsider before you disqualify seemingly promising applicants just because they have a previous eviction in their credit record, especially if the eviction happened years ago. Sometimes unfortunate circumstances like eviction inspire tenants to bounce back and turn in a new leaf. Chances are high that tenants who have experienced a previous eviction have suffered enough consequences and would do everything to never go through it again.

After posting your listings to listing syndication websites like Padleads, you will receive a lot of inquiries from different applicants. Take the chance to ask them about their past tenancies. If an applicant comes clean about a previous eviction, learn how it went first and how he can assure you that it will never happen again. You never know, he might even be a better tenant than the ones with spotless records.