The trouble in this recesssion is that even people with good credit are having a hard time paying their bills.   A credit report is only as good as the moment it was taken.  Insisting on proof of employment is a valuable way to make sure you tenant can at least pay next months rent.  But what about four months from now? after your tenant has moved in.  Are you noticing signs of problems?  Have the checks been arriving later and later in the month?  Are you charging late fees?  Is your tenant dating their checks for later in the month?  Are you feeling squeezed?  It’s difficult to know the right thing to do.  Always adhere to the local, state, and nationals laws about housing.  It is worth maintaining a line of communication with your tenant.  Maintain accurate and current contact information for your tenant.  Should they decide to skip town without paying rent, contact information will assist with locating and collecting any judgments you obtain.

Eviction Records
We would also add that checking for Eviction Records is an important aspect of tenant screening.  While anyone could be struck with hard luck during this economic crisis, be aware that a previous pattern of evictions shows how much respect your prospective tenant has for the contract you are about to sign.

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for more information, contact Tenantchecker.com

WLKY.com

The story highlights one of the dangers of not responding to tenant complaints: there is a strong possibility of negative publicity, especially in the down economy, for these types of stories to make the local publications. With the Internet, these local stories turn into nationwide awareness of your firm, in this case, Brookside Properties, in Nashville

We recommend getting out in front of these types of problems before the potential for negative attacks.   Take precautionary measures to ensure a safe living environment for your tenants.  Before winter, work with the utility companies to check out heating equipment and minimize breakdowns.  It will save you money in the long run.  Your tenants will love you, and pay rent faster, stay longer, and recommend your building.

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tenant problems

In response to residents’ complaints, the city will forward (the owner) reports of serious incidents so he can follow through with the tenants, including evicting them if necessary. 

More than ever we are seeing communities starting to crack down on apartment complexes that seem to have a large amount of police responses.   While the efforts of the community to reduce crime are noble, it seems possible that some apartment complex owners could be scapegoated based on one or two problem tenants.  The lesson here is to avoid becoming the scapegoat bad apartment owner no matter what the actual facts are. 

Don’t want until the city council calls to you respond to complaints.  Make moves now to shore up your public relations by implementing and enforcing an effective tenant screening program that not only includes credit history checks but also a criminal history search and employment verification.  Make your efforts visible and clear to the surrounding community.  If necessary, hire security guards or install cameras to monitor activity in potential problem areas, like the parking lot, stairwells, and anywhere tenants will likely loiter.  Publicize your efforts and your community public relations will improve.  You might even be rewarded for your efforts to clean up the community.   

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Tenant Screening
The association recommends both running credit history reports, criminal records searches, eviction records searches, and even verify the tenants employment and residential history. These type of searches are comprehensive tenant screening will help you avoid most problem tenants, and also avoid any negligence lawsuits should something violent happen on your premises. While criminal record searches are available in many ways, we recommend you confirm the tenants address history and check out the criminal history where they lived. Some nationwide criminal databases are more powerful in different areas, and lacking in some. Speak with your tenant screening company about the where the database searches are good, and where you may need to run a county criminal search at the court. The county criminal search takes more time, but will pull directly from the court records.

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“We did a full background check,” she said. “He had just gotten out of prison. That’s probably why (his girlfriend) kept it under wraps, because otherwise we probably wouldn’t have rented to him.”  “We didn’t give him authority to live there,” Albert Rodriguez said. 

He had apparently moved in with his girlfriend a few weeks before, unknown to the property management.  The girlfriend had rented the apartment and apparently passed the tenant screening; he had just gotten out of prison and would have been disqualified according to their tenant screening policy.  After several complaints of loud music, the male was shoot to death in the trailer. 

Property Managers are struggling with this all too frequent problem of shacking up with the significant other, especially if presents a danger to the residential community.  How can you monitor your tenants effectively to be aware of this potentially dangerous changes?  You could institute a policy regarding formal notification anyone staying over longer than say three days, but would any tenant effective follow the procedure.  Could you institute incentives and disincentives for not reporting?  How has time to monitor this behavior?  It could be case of Monday Morning Quarterbacking.  The trouble is for these property managers, they might be faced with a laced from other tenants for some perceived negligence.   Hopefully the property managers will come up with a successful and practice solution to this now know hole in the tenant screening process.

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As economic tensions mount, be aware of potential changes in your tenants behavior.  While your tenant and building security is top notch, and it is beyond the scope to know of a tenant’s potential for violence unless a documented violent behavior in the past has occurred.  If your tenant is arrested, if there is a police report or police called the building, make sure your security personnel write their own report documenting what happened.   You do not want to be held liable if what occurs could be construed as foreseeable.  Also, arguably, even if you could win the lawsuit, you don’t want to spend money and time on it.

Always conduct proper tenant screening to adopt a screening policy that include criminal records searches.   Better to be safe than sorry; and make sure that your tenant screening policy is consistent.

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Keep them renting or abandon the building
This bill addresses a larger strategic issue for urban planners, whether to keep foreclosed buildings with renters inside to maintain the value of the property, or evict them and have an abandoned building on the block, open to vandalism and abuse.

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To protect against these type of lawsuits, a landlord or property owner/manager should conduct a thorough inspection of their property and determine any environmental concerns that might breed crime, such as back alleys, dark corridors, lack of lighting, security guards or security cameras.   Consider whether your property needs a security guard or security camera.  Is the parking area safe?   Next review any criminal activity that has occurred on the premises and determine whether the same factors leading to this case could arise again.  Are the same tenants still living in the building?  Then, consider whether you can conduct an annual criminal background check on your tenants.  Depending on the laws of your jurisdiction, consider including such language in the body your initial tenant background check release form.   Keep your property safe from crime will limit and reduce any possible lawsuits filed against you for negligence.

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I think having a pet shows you’re stable, responsible and flexible – all qualities of a good tenant.

Most landlords and property managers look at the wear and tear associated with pets and usually opt for the “NO PETS” sign.  While this financial logic is sound, pets do cause damage, Jessica hits them with unusual case of unintended consequences.  If you deny pet owners, then you are eliminating a group of potential responsible tenants from your prospective tenant pool.   While we are startled and grudgingly agree with Jessica’s position, we would like to modify it to “Allowed Pet” as we all know that the some pet owners have the propensity to titter over the brink of reality and start breeding and hording pets.  You do not want video of your property showing up on the evening news when they evict the lady with Fifty cats!

Jessica also mentions the importance of conducting a proper credit check and criminal check on your prospective tenants.  Also, she recommends making your applicants pay for the service.  If they balk at this, you’ve already weeded out a potentially bad tenant. 

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