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The tips below from Rentler will help you avoid some common mistakes and make the leasing experience better for both you and your tenants.
Establish rental criteria BEFORE you start screening tenants.
It’s important to know what you’re looking for in a tenant before they start submitting applications. According to the Fair Housing Act, once a person meets your criteria you MUST rent your property on a first come, first served basis.
This means if you’ve let something slip through the cracks, like you forgot to mention in your listing that the apartment does not allow pets, you could potentially face legal action for skipping over a qualified applicant who has a dog.
By establishing your criteria beforehand, you’ll save yourself all sorts of problems down the road, including the possible hassle of evicting a less-than-desirable tenant. As a bonus tip, if you pass on someone based on their credit, you MUST send them a letter explaining the reason for their rejection.
Screen everyone 18 or older.
Make sure you know everyone who’s going to be living in your rental property, even if they’ll only be there part of the time. Anyone over 18, whether they be a roommate, son, daughter, significant other, or a cousin Eddie who sleeps over two weeks a month should have a background check.
On the off-chance any of these people have a criminal history, YOU could be held liable for their actions because you didn’t properly screen them when they moved in. It’s always better to be safe than sorry with background checks.
Chances are your applicants won’t have anything to hide and will appreciate that you’re concerned about their (and the neighborhood’s) welfare.
Make sure you have legitimate documents.
Being a do-it-yourself landlord may lead you to believe that you’ll be just fine grabbing a generic legal contract and application off of the internet. Don’t make this mistake.
There are some things you just shouldn’t do yourself, and legal documents are usually one. Unless you’re a lawyer during the day who moonlights as a landlord, the legal risks of these fill-in-the-blank contracts just aren’t worth it. You have more important things to do than worry about the verbiage of your termination clause (if the cut-and-paste contract you downloaded even included one).
Save yourself the trouble by using contracts and applications that have been created and sanctioned by state specific legal counsel. You can find such contracts and applications for Utah at Rentler.com.
Be careful where you store legal documents.
You’ve gone to great lengths to provide your tenants with detailed applications and rental contracts that protect both parties – now what? If you used physical documents, make sure to store them in a personal safe or, better yet, a safe-deposit box at your bank.
It’s your responsibility to protect your tenant’s personal information from identity theft. You can reduce the risk associated with physical documents by using a reputable third party to run online background and credit checks and who also accepts and stores digital applications. You’ll get all of the information you need without the risk or worry of having to safely store tenant information.
Rentler provides online credit checks, criminal history, and eviction history to help you select the right tenants and then stores all applications safely and securely for you.
