Rental History
Most experienced landlords recommend asking the applicant to provide rental history for the past three years. Usually that timeframe will provide one or two prior landlord references in addition to the most recent landlord reference. Reference checking is a simple step but some landlords skip over this critical screening, thinking it unnecessary if the credit report is satisfactory. However contacting former landlords may provide more honest answers to questions about an applicant’s rental history.
Calling landlord references to determine whether the applicant satisfactorily fulfilled his lease obligations is a business safeguard that should be a standard landlord practice. Failing to conduct all due diligence on applicants has the potential for claims of liability and negligence.
While some former landlords could be hesitant to provide detailed tenant information due to concerns of potential liability for privacy and safeguarding of tenant personally identifying information, at a minimum a landlord calling for rental references should be able to confirm the dates of tenancy, rent amount, and notices served.
The landlord wanting to fill his vacancy is trying to determine if an applicant will make a good renter. If the applicant was a good renter for a previous landlord, it could indicate the applicant may be a lower risk candidate for tenant selection. Questions that could be asked when contacting a previous landlord for the applicant’s rental history could be in the areas of:
- Dates of tenancy
- Monthly rent amount
- Notices for late rents
- Security deposit amount
- Warnings for noise or disturbance
- Pets
- Property left in good condition
- Reason for move-out
- Eligible to rent again
Many landlords are of the opinion that landlord reference checking is perhaps the strongest risk assessment tool to predict an applicant’s future rental behaviors, in other words, will the applicant be the “good renter”.
An applicant may request that the current landlord not be contacted for references. While the tenant’s request could be based upon a valid and acceptable reason, a landlord should not deviate from standard business policies. If an exception to a rental policy is made for one potential tenant, other potential tenants may be able to claim the landlord was discriminatory in his screening practices.
There are some applicants who have limited rental history. For these applicants a landlord could consider contacting personal references as a screening tool for risk assessment. When traditional rental history is limited or not available, a landlord may consider information from personal references in the decisioning process for tenant selection.
Some questions that could be asked of a personal reference include:
- How does the reference know the applicant?
- How long has the reference known the applicant?
- How frequently does the reference keep in contact with the applicant?
- Is the reference a former roommate or co-tenant?
- Has the reference served as a rental reference before?