Eviction Secrets Revealed!

You might think evictions only happen to tenants who are financially irresponsible or those who can’t afford rent checks for one reason or another. However, sometimes evictions happen to very wealthy people who were just very bad tenants. That is why you must perform eviction checks on all your tenant applicants, regardless of their income level.

Last week, several media outlets reported that troubled star, Amanda Bynes, was evicted from her NYC apartment. Bynes, who is reportedly worth $4 million, was kicked out following an arrest and numerous complaints. Neighbors say she was smoking in the hallways and very rude to the doormen.

Whitney Houston’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, denied rumors she was evicted from her Georgia apartment last week. Brown, who is also reportedly worth several million dollars, claims she moved because of discord with neighbors. However, the neighbors claim Brown threw loud parties and they had to file at least 10 complaints with police and property management.

Eviction checks and landlord references  are imperative, because they can tell you invaluable things about a tenant that credit checks and employment history cannot.

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Delegate smaller landlord duties so you can focus your priority on profits

Many landlords, particularly accidental landlords, think they should do everything about the business themselves. They think that because they are capable of doing it, they should be the ones to market the property, interview applicants, perform tenant screening, get the lease signed, and take care of any maintenance issues or problems that arise with tenants and/or the property. That’s a long list of chores for someone who might have another job (plus a family, private life and home of their own!).

It’s understandable that you want to save as much money as you can by not hiring someone else to do what you can do yourself. After all, you’re in this business to make money, so you want to position your business endeavor to be as profitable as possible, and that means saving money, not spending it.

But keep in mind that your time is valuable too, and when your schedule becomes jammed with an endless “to do” list, you become your business’s own bottleneck, impeding the flow of work — and, therefore, also the flow of money — simply because there’s too much to do and only one person to do it.

As the head of your business, your most important job is to delegate. You should spend your time doing only what will increase profits. That includes shaping the business’s future and bringing in more money. If you’re spending valuable time fixing leaky faucets and making photocopies of signed leases, then you’re not spending all your time increasing profits. Don’t short-change yourself:  Hire qualified people who can help you with maintenance and repair issues, keep track of paperwork, and conduct background checks and credit checks on tenant applicants. Your ‘to do’ list will thank you!

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Make sure that rental application is legible

Many tenant applications are filled out hastily, as applicants want to get their paperwork back to you before anyone else scoops up the place their interested in renting. The first mistake a landlord can make when reviewing an application is to assume something — anything — when trying to decipher someone’s handwriting. If you’re unclear whether that digit in someone’s social security number is a 6 or a 0, don’t guess! Likewise, don’t guess about the spelling of a person’s name. When it comes to background checks, you’ll need the following information to be rock solid:

1. You’ll need the person’s social security number in order to do a credit check. Thousands of people have common names and birthdays, and if you guess on even one of the person’s social security numbers, you might end up pulling the wrong person’s credit.
2. You’ll need a correct spelling of the full legal name and date of birth for any criminal background check or previous eviction check. Most public records databases have removed SSNs from their files. So screening providers use the name and DOB identifiers to narrow down their search. So a criminal record for “Thomas McMurray, born 6/2/1987” may not come up if the landlord inputs “Tom McMurry, born 6/7/1987.”
3. You’ll also need the proper spelling of the applicant’s name to do a state or national search in sex offender registries.

If something is unclear, call the applicant and double-check. Also let them know that if you have to re-run a background check because the information wasn’t clear and correct, they’ll have to foot the bill.

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