Rental Property Investor · Halifax, NS · Member since 2019 · 41 posts · 33 votes
Hi BP rock stars,
I am aware that in Halifax NS, the tenant is not required to provide SIN. Under this condition, how do you usually conduct background and credit check if the applicant is not willing to disclose this information, and it seems that the law says we can not simply deny their application just because they are not willing to provide it.
@Yuan He in lieu of the SIN, I’d ask for the name, number and address of the Applicant’s last three landlords, and contact them to discuss the Applicant’s tenant history.
I’d also contact Access Nova Scotia to inquire if they’d ever been reported to Residential Tenancies for a breach of contract or dispute with the landlord.
And finally, I’d inquire what their gross monthly take-home is, to ensure my rent is within the threshold of what they can afford (eg. 30% or less).
If you were wondering about some of the third party providers available in Canada that @Roy N. referenced above, we've recently begun using Naborly for tenant screenings and have had a good experience thus far. They provide a copy of the applicant's equifax report / verify income documentation, etc.
I will note that you still absolutely need to do your own verification and checks to determine suitability for tenancy (do not base your decision solely on the score that the program generates on an application), but Naborly does a decent job of collecting an applicant's info and providing some helpful analysis points on their application.
Cheers,
Thanks @Jeremy Arsenault ! Yes, for now, I use Naborly and also manually send out application for them to fill. I have chosen who I believe is the most suitable tenant. Do you also ask for their bank statement ?