Effective Style of Screening tenants

Property investors, in the course of becoming landlords, sometimes get scratched the wrong end. It happens when they land on a tenant whose dream is to create a nightmare for the landlord. Can this situation be avoided? YES. Ever so completely!

Screening prospective tenants

Your property manager can do it, you can do it and both of you can jointly do it but do you must. Thorough screening of prospective tenants is not only desirable but a prerequisite. It should all begin with an elaborate application form that you ask them to fill.

References: personal, professional and credit-based

Smoothly glide down the reference road and ask for both professional and personal references. Credit referencing can be a nice addition to the vetting work. Ask the prospective tenants to furnish last three months’ bank statement. And make sure they run into the present month, ensuring there hasn’t been a layoff recently (one which triggered the house hunting move for all you know).

Rental history and tenancy database

While screening tenants, check their rental history. Speak to their previous landlords, seek from them the number of their real estate agent and try to figure out a pattern in their renting behaviour. Look into the tenancy database to find out if they have ever been blacklisted and before you come to the end of the vetting process make sure you have a guarantor for them.

Things can still go wrong

Even after this, you can never sleep too well. I have known landlords (investors) who did it all and yet found a drug laboratory right at the heart of their property…. staring at them after the premises were vacated. On top of this, they found faucets tampered with, electrical installations hampered, and walls full of ugly graphics. And lest I forget, rental arrears. Yet it is safe to say that a thorough screening guards you a great deal against such tenancy mishaps.

Has your tenancy agreement gone miserably wrong ever?