The courses begin in September and cover various aspects of home owning including first time home buying, windows, woodworking, radiant heat panels, and property management including a section on tenant screening.   The course includes information on city codes, relationships with tenants, and how to conduct tenant screening.

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“They’re pulled their condos off the markets and they put them in the rental pool,  so now our rental pool is now saturated too”  

Act fast to take advantage of this rare combined effect of winter and housing slump and pick up that apartment you’ve always wanted.  There are attractive rental rates available as well as incentives to move; sometimes 1month or 2 months free. 

If you are looking to live a complex, duplex, or any sort of apartment living in close proximity to other tenants, make sure your landlord screens every tenant.  This usually includes a credit history report, income verification, and employment verification, but should also include a criminal history search.  You can learn a lot about your landlords’ property management style by how they treat you during the lease signing period.

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Using Media to promote your safety policy
However property managers and landlords can use electronic media to their advantage by publicizing their efforts to increase security.  By taking proactive steps to increase property safety, such instituting a comprehensive tenant screening program with tenant credit reports and background checks, property managers can publicize this information and usually reach a local newspapers.  For example Denton Apartments in made headlines in Dothan Alabama by discuss how they are cracking down on the partying teenagers in their parking lots.  The rest of the article discussing how running a background screening program and checking for drugs has become a full time job for the management company.

“We do not rent to felons and sex offenders. We may have a good person with a clean record to rent a place for somebody else and they try to slide in under the radar,” Hallford said.

“It’s a full-time job for me, looking for unauthorized persons in units. Residents have three days to get those people in here for background check. We do not want felons and sex offenders on the property and we do not want drugs on our property.”

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Tenant’s Liability

According the OC Register, some tenants believe that they don’t need renter’s insurance because they are covered by the building owner’s policy.  While the building owner’s policy covers the building, it doesn’t cover theft or kitchen fires.  Tenants are arguably liable for “any problem they create” such as a kitchen fire.  Even if your landlord doesn’t require renters insurance, it’s valuable for tenants the protect their property and the risk of a lawsuit with renter’s insurance.   Renter’s insurance should defend you should someone decide to sue you for slipping and falling inside your apartment or on your balcony.  Another little known detail is that renter’s insurance might be able to provide assistance should you be involved in a civil suit, similar to the protection provided by a home owner’s policy.   Talk to your insurance broker about the exact details of each policy.  

Landlords Benefits of Renter’s Insurance

Landlords who require renter’s insurance enjoy the benefits of having tenants who are protected, should a tenant-caused accident occur in the apartment, and it also provides a level of tenant screening, by screening out some tenants who are so strapped that they can’t afford to pay an additional  $15-20 per month.  If your tenants cannot afford this small amount, chances are they might not be able to pay the rent very soon.

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The article says that the city council is pondering whether to mandate other apartment complexes to pay for security measures, such as security cameras, security guards and better lighting.  They are wondering if legally, these apartment complexes pose an unacceptable risk to public safety.  It should be interesting to see how this legal issue plays out, especially since some property managers can be held liable if the crime is foreseeable.   The new mandate seems a touch heavy-handed and big government (will they be instituted for every apartment complex, or only larger, crime ridden ones?)  Is it open to manipulation and graft?   It’s worth pointing out that it appears Creative Management instituted this additional security policy and tenant screening program based on their own business strategy and not by government mandate, and now they are enjoying a better reputation, probably charging higher rents, probably seeing higher property values (in the long run) and receiving positive press and developing a excellent business image.  Hopefully the other apartment building owners will see these benefits and institute similar policies without government intrusion.

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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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Channel 34 news

It was feces all over the place. There was literally millions, not thousand, but millions of roaches. Where I had totally barfed because there’s so much stuff that was going on. Three days ago this sidewalk, from that pole to that tree, was lined with garbage – furniture saturated with urine and infested with roaches, and garbage as high as I am tall.” 

 The final price tag for the clean up was $10,000.  Apparently the tenant paid their rent on time and never called about any problems.  Maybe they should have.

Would a background check help? 
It’s worth wondering whether a tenant background check would have alerted the landlord to the potential problem with this tenant.  As stated in the article, the tenant paid their rent on time and didn’t cause a problem.  It’s possible this tenant would have decent credit and no criminal record.  This is why it’s worth it to check for possible previous evictions.  Evictions occur according to the local, state and federal laws applicable in the area, adn are usually along financial lines, but sometimes the tenant can be evicted for other reasons, such as trashing the apartment.  If this happened before, it good to check again. 

Another thing to consider is make sure someone is doing walkthrough on your building.  If you don’t have a full time maintenance personnel, make sure someone is aware of the problems in the building and communicate with your tenants from time to time to be aware of any problems.  The complaints about the smells would have been a first warning. 

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Under the program, police would provide background checks and recommendations on prospective tenants.

Hopefully this program will work to the benefit of the community. We are a little skeptical about the efficacy of the police running background checks giving recommendations on prospective tenants, not because they aren’t informed or effective, only that this is exactly the sort of labor intensive work that boggs down police departments and creates a huge backlog of background research for police officers and non-sworns to do.

To speed up your screening, we recommend you run county criminal records searches in all counties where your prospective tenant has resided. The searches take approximately 1 to 3 business days, depending on your area, and will provide you with a powerful history of your tenants criminal past.

Landlords who attended the meeting in Millsboro shared horror stories:

Ted LaMantia said he has multiple clients that owe him thousands of dollars, including one tenant who declared bankruptcy twice to avoid paying him $6,000 she owed.

Tenant Financial Responsibility
So your prospective tenant does not have a criminal history. Now what? Make sure they can pay you. Also run your tenant credit history and also check for previous evictions, and bankruptcies, liens and judgments. You should also verify their current ability to pay for verifying their employment, either through a pay stub or employment verification search.

Read the entire article here:

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Read the full article here

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Sounding much more dire than in past years, some landlords said they are essentially down to no profit and are having to sell their regulated buildings. One owner warned that it could get bad enough that owners might begin abandoning buildings like they did in the early 1990s.

If you’re just getting in the landlord business, it’s more important than ever to screen your potential tenants.  While you can always evict a problem tenant, it’s a costly experience and takes a long time.  Protect yourself from the start by thoroughly screening your tenants with tenant background check.  We recommend running a tenant credit report, which will show their current debt obligations, debt-to-income ratios, previous late payments, and any loans they have failed to pay back, or bankruptcy.  In these times it’s important to verify income, so ask for a paycheck stub.  Compare this information to the credit report; some people live outside their means and you may want to pick a tenant that is not heavily leveraged.

 It’s important to know the laws and statutes of your city, county, state and federal for your area.  Keep these in mind before you begin your journey as a landlord.  

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