You will encounter a lot of people being a landlord because for you to find a good tenant, you have to perform the tenant-screening procedures. With you using Padleads to create your property listings, it is a guarantee that you will have several applicants lining up to be a tenant. It will not only let you make listings, but it will also let you syndicate it to other websites so it will reach more people and that means more applicants for you.
Sometimes you will be fortunate enough to find good tenants immediately. But there will be days that it is difficult to fill in a vacancy. The applicants might have incomplete requirements or they cannot afford your rental price. There will be a lot of reasons why an applicant is not fit. Right now, I want to focus on one reason, and that is eviction history.
An applicant with previous experience with eviction can be a red flag for future landlords. It might be because they have breached the contract somehow, failed to religiously pay their rent, or caused property damage. Whatever it is, any landlord will hesitate if they see an application with an eviction record.
How does one look into a tenant’s eviction history?
Checking court records
The first thing you can do is to check court records for evictions. The task can be very tiring because there are different courthouses for each state and area. You can search for the state’s website but mind you, there can be a lot of other websites for one state. Be sure to check them all.
Once you get to the correct website, search their names to check for any records. You should also verify the information using the other details they gave you. There is a possibility that someone will have the same name as your tenant. This is why you should also use their name before they got married, birth name, and nickname.
If you do find the record, I suggest that you read it thoroughly. You should know the reason why the tenant was evicted because it has a possibility that it had not been their fault. Sometimes, some landlords try to evict their tenants to get back at them. You should not immediately reject an application without knowing the details first.
If you are unable to find the record, you can personally go to the courthouse to check their files. You might be wondering if that’s allowed. Yes, It is allowed because these records are public. You won’t be doing anything illegal, don’t worry.
Hiring a third-party service
Searching eviction records can be time-consuming and tedious. You cannot be expected to spend hours searching on top of managing your properties. If you do not have the time to look through several web pages to look for such documents, you do have an option to hire a third-party service to do the job for you.
Some companies will include a search for an eviction history as part of their screening service. This will save you time and you can be sure that they will present an output because they are paid to do so.
The word eviction does have a negative meaning and some landlords will immediately reject an application because of it. Not everybody will take the risk of having a tenant who will potentially cause trouble. But a good landlord will give them a fair chance and investigate before making his decision. You might end up rejecting a good tenant just because of something you have not thoroughly understood.