On Sat, 14 May 2016 16:27:42 -0500, Unquestionably Confused
wrote:

On 5/14/2016 9:02 AM, KenK wrote:
How can a landlord reliably check out a potential rentor? If you ask
for s reference what's stopping them from having a friend say they
are a previous landlord and giving them a good recomendation? I know
of no way to verify that person's phone call.

I am asking because my last tenant wrecked the rental and I'd prefer
this not happen again.

Of course I should inspect but I'd never had a bad tenant before and
it didn't occur to me.

Suggestions?

The number one thing you can do to protect yourself is to go to the
courthouse and check the court clerk's office and run their names
through the civil and criminal indices. Doing this as an individual
doing it for yourself relieves you of some of the stupid restrictions
the states and feds place upon you via the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

We find that most of the problem tenants move around a given area and
screw over one landlord as they look for a new place to live and keep
repeating the cycle generally staying in the same jurisdiction - but not
always.

If you have a tenant that was living the next town over, etc. if he was
evicted or sued for non-payment of rent, arrested for drug
use/possession/distribution, or just a lousy record of not paying bills,
bouncing checks, you will find it when you search. If they are coming
in from another county, you can still call that court and either find
out what record may exist (for a fee usually) or drive there yourself.

Regardless, it's always a good idea to have the prospective tenant(s)
sign a release allowing you to run credit, criminal history, etc.
checks. You don't need, you won't use it, but if there's any hesitation
on the part of the prospective tenant(s) you don't want them.

If you find numerous small claims cases against them, etc. You don't
want them.

If they've been evicted - you don't want them.

If they're dopers, fighters, burglars, shoplifters, bad check artists,
guess what. You're ahead of the game leaving the property vacant.

In many cases even if there is no record to find you are better to
leave it empty.

You'd never catch me being an urban landlord. The downside outweighs
the upside in way too many incidents.

It's almost impossible to evict a tennant. I know of tennants who have
lived 6 to 12 months at a time in numerous places - moving out before
eviction and never paying more than first and last month's rent.. No
record of bounced checques, no record of evictions..