Property management can’t disclose tenant info?

[Jeremy Cardenales]

Hello everyone I am currently in the process of closing and their is tenants that moved in on November 9th placed by the property management company. I am asking the property management for proof of verification of income and occupation as I do not want to go through an eviction or have anyone in the property that can not afford the rent. Is this true? If so how can I go about this ? Thank you for your help!!

[James Wise]

Originally posted by @Jeremy Cardenales:

@James Wise Yes the property management is also handling the sale.

 Alright good to know as this means we have one simple line of communication. We don't need to worry about discussing information with 3 separate parties (Seller, Realtor & Property Manager)

As I write this it's important for you to know my background as when you are on internet forums like this what you'll get is a lot of people jumping in and giving out opinions on the situation. Many of the people that do this tend to look at things in a vacuum. They only see things from their perspective and on this website that perspective is often that of a newer Real Estate Investor who at most has a handful of rental properties & very limited real world experience in the rental industry. Myself I have transacted over $100M in investment real estate sales & run a Property Management company with a $50M+ rental property portfolio. Having sold countless rental properties & screened 1,000's of tenants I am well versed on this topic from every angle.

When a Property Management business handles tenant screening they are held to strict standards as to how they handle the sensitive information that they have access to when running tenants credit & background information. They are subject to site visits to ensure compliance before they are even allowed to pull these reports. As such that information must be appropriately guarded at all times. Just arbitrarily handing it out to unauthorized parties such as yourself is a no go. 

Some on this thread have alluded to the fact that the Property Manager works directly for the seller so the seller will need to give the Property Manager the authorization to give this information to you. That is also a no go. The seller has nothing to do with the Property Management Company's duties to safeguard this information as required by the Consumer Reporting Agencies & the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

What you should do instead of trying to get that specific information is get the Property Management Company's screening criteria. From there the Property Management Company should be able to verify for you that the tenants the property did in fact meet the Property Management Company's screening requirements before they were placed in the property.