Applicants Lie!
I had to come on here and post because I just can never get over how blatantly people lie about their past and the lengths they go to cover it up. As landlords we HAVE to see the writing on the wall.
When screening tenants I have an application that asks a series of questions, which includes where they have lived for the past 5 years, where they work and how long and if they have ever had eviction papers filed against them. My goal is to check them out and find truth throughout everything or else they don't qualify because they have lied. Obviously this is up to you.
I then proceed to call and verify employment. DON'T call the person they write down for you to call, call the actual company and talk to HR. They can only legally provide you with the date of hire and verify that they are still employed there, sometimes they provide more though. I ask to see pay check stubs from potential tenants too.
I check with current landlords. I'm leery though and first check the property records on the house to see if they match who they say owns the house. If they don't match up, I ask them about that and see what they say. The guy I called today said he would have to call me back...mmm that's weird I would never have to call someone back on a property I really own :/ The other good give away was that the owner of the property had the same last name as the guy who wanted to rent from me, so I can connect the dots a lot easier.
I use doxpop which has almost the entire state of Indiana's court documents as public record. This is awesome for connecting previous places people have lived with where they say they lived. You can also see if they have committed any crimes, been evicted, have had liens placed against them etc.
The moral of my story is that I check everything and believe nothing until it checks out. People take for granted that you either won't check or that you will only call their good friend who can pretend to their employer.
Enough about me...what have YOU found people lying about and how have you tweaked your system so you can better screen tenants?