Recent reports have revealed that up to 100 million Americans have criminal records. This means that about one in three American adults has been charged with committing at least one minor crime.
If you're a landlord in the Kansas City area, you might want to be wary about renting out any properties to those with criminal records. You should look into conducting a tenant criminal background check on each tenant who shows an interest in your rental properties.
Here are three tips that will help you as you conduct a criminal background check during a tenant check.
1. Tell Potential Tenants You Conduct Background Checks
Ideally, you should find a way to let all potential tenants know that you are going to conduct a tenant criminal background check on them to see if they qualify to rent a property from you. This may help weed out some of them from the start.
If a person knows that you aren't going to like what you find when you take a look at their tenant criminal background, it might stop them from putting in an application in the first place. It'll result in less work on your part.
2. Hire a Property Management Company to Do Background Checks
If you only have one rental property and don't mind conducting criminal background checks on your own, you're welcome to run them yourself. But if you have a bunch of rental properties, you'll be better off hiring a property management company to assist you.
They'll be able to create tenant selection criteria for you. Property managers will also be able to carry out tenant criminal background checks so that you don't have to worry about doing it yourself.
3. Review Background Checks Carefully
Just because someone gets dinged when you run a tenant criminal background check on them doesn't mean you shouldn't allow them to rent a property from you. It should all depend on:
- Which crime they committed
- When they committed this crime
- What they did do to turn things around after committing this crime
If a potential tenant committed a crime 20 years ago and has since taken the right steps to get back into society's good graces, you may not want to hold their tenant criminal background check against them. You'll need to carefully review their background check to see what it says about them.
Let Us Help You With a Tenant Criminal Background Check
Would you like to get some help with conducting a tenant criminal background check on each potential tenant for a rental property in Kansas City? HomeRiver Group Kansas City would be happy to lend a hand.
We can also assist you with a wide range of other property management services. From marketing your available properties to helping you maintain them, we can do it all. It'll make your life as a landlord so much easier than it is now.
Contact us today to hear more about our property management services.
