adult children who engage in criminal behavior because you didn’t bother to have them apply.
You’ll want to avoid this situation, too: Many groups of people will try to rent a house together and have whoever looks “good on paper” fill out the rental application, while the others, who don’t look so “good,” move in later. Do the same with any co-signer on the lease. Put some policies in place as part of your minimum qualification standards. For example, a co-signer should have good — if not great — credit. Maybe you’re thinking this is overkill, that these questions are too in-depth, too “over the top,” too unnecessary, too nosy, too, well, stupid. But don’t forget: You’re letting other people — strangers — into your property to live there. While you might be tempted to give people the benefit of the doubt and skip out on the minimum qualification standards, this is very risky and potentially disastrous. As I’ve said before, you have the right to know who is going to be living in your home, and you need to be comfortable with your decision. You’re essentially risking your property and your livelihood. Someone could stiff you out of rental payments or cause $20,000 in damages.
Set Up a Screening Process
Once you’ve determined your minimum qualification standards, you need to set up a screening process that checks all of these items for you. For example, if you want to avoid tenants with a criminal record, you can set up a process that looks into criminal backgrounds. There are many types of tenant-screening systems and software that will do most of the work for you. However, while these systems and software will check most of 99
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