Landlords and property owners have to contend with a number of issues, risks, and problems when renting out an apartment or a land, for instance. Of course, there are laws that supposedly protect owners from dubious entities who practice rental fraud. But unfortunately, these laws do not work much to their advantage, as the frauds can already get their way around these roadblocks to their criminal intent. This is, now more than ever, it is essential for a landlord or a property owner to secure a tenant report.
A tenant report can serve as anyone’s insurance against fraudulent individuals. Once a landlord hands the key to a property, it will be very difficult to get it back; the contract that should serve the landlord as protection could work to the tenant’s advantage, instead even if he or she is not adhering to it. Therefore, a landlord should do the extra precautions by securing a tenant report.
Many would be skeptical with this practice, since this is a relatively new process, but here are some problems and risks that landlords have to contend with, and how a tenant report can eradicate these risks.
Asking for referrals from previous landlords is a common practice when assessing potential tenants. Unfortunately, unless the landlord plans to do actual work on this assessment, there is no way to find out whether the potential tenant is lying about the information he or she will give the landlord about his or her previous landlord. For instance, he can simply give the contact number of a friend-and (especially if the dubious tenant is prepared) the landlord will have no way of knowing. A tenant report can remedy this potential risk; a tenant report contains information regarding a potential tenant’s past addresses. With this, a landlord can verify the information given to him.
In connection with previous items, landlords do not have some sort of networking system in order to verify and inform each other of fraudulent individuals. Adding risk to this lack of system is the landlord’s intent to remove any fraudulent tenants from his property. Therefore, he usually gives favorable referrals for these frauds-even if they do not deserve it-just so they can move to another property. A tenant report can do what a referral can’t-tell the truth about a tenant’s history and capacity.
Landlords usually do not entertain individuals without jobs, assets, or forwarding addresses. Yet, anyone can easily provide false information regarding these areas, as well as provide false evidence of employment, assets, and addresses (for instance, one can easily get fraud employment certificates online). Again, a tenant report can inform a landlord regarding these areas-and he can be certain that the information in the tenant report is true and accurate.
Unfortunately, landlords and property owners will have a difficult time making fraudulent tenants liable for their actions. Non-payment for rental properties cannot be considered as a criminal act if the landlord cannot prove the tenant’s criminal intent-which can be difficult. So why should anyone put themselves into this much trouble when it can be avoided with a tenant report anyway?
