Previous Landlord Verification

Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Tenant Screening
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Previous Landlord Verification

Nathan McBride
Real Estate Agent · Baton Rouge, LA · Member since 2017 · 82 posts · 85 votes

Recently, several apartment complexes have responded to residency verification requests saying they no longer do them, even at the request of the tenant.

My questions are:

1. Has something recently changed at the top, like national trade association guidance, etc.?

2. What are other managers doing to verify applicants' previous residency if no luck with previous landlord?

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  • Patricia Steiner
    Real Estate Broker · Hyde Park Tampa, FL · Member since 2019 · 2k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    3y

    You really ought to google this and see the pages of responses to this issue.  What has changed is the liability that landlords face whenever they give a reference - even if factual in nature. You'll see online the whole menu of 'lawsuits of the day' filed by tenants who end up not getting the next rental because of something said/not said by the former/current landlord.  And, what hasn't changed is that for the apartment complexes and most other landlords, these are time consuming requests to fulfill with nothing in it for them for doing it - other than risk.  Most now report rent history to the credit bureau and there are several online sites for verifying someone's address by date.  It's never been an issue for me in vetting my tenants...fortunately/unfortunately, it's all out there on the internet.  

    Vetting tenants is something that I spend a lot of time on in addition to using a national screening resource.  Online searches of not only the tenant's name - but of their employer and any address they give is very telling.  I have helped BPers in the past with some tenant issues and it was amazing how creative the bad tenants can be in covering up their past:  their last apartment complex was actually a car wash but they arranged for someone to answer the phone by the 'complex' name, their employer's address was an empty field, another's previous landlord was a bail bondsman...and that said a lot about their employment as well.  You're not going to find any of this out without skipping their contacts and independently vetting the information.

    Entertaining business...

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  • Nathan McBride
    OP
    Real Estate Agent · Baton Rouge, LA · Member since 2017 · 82 posts · 85 votes
    3y

    @Patricia Steiner yes it's definitely an interesting business.  We recently had someone photoshop paystubs that my employee only caught because they had a discrepancy on a date (they were in fact employed there so passed the initial employment verification check).  Wild how sneaky and blatantly dishonest folks can be.

    Goes to show how important systems and processes are and the value of a quality property manager.  Honestly, I probably would not have caught that in my previous life as an investor on the side managing my own properties.

    We always go a couple of levels deep in checking tenant information (social media, Google searches of addresses for employers, residences, etc.) but this was a new issue that came up.  Sounds like it isn't going away anytime soon.

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  • Michael SmytheBusiness Member
    Real Estate Agent · Metro Detroit · Member since 2023 · 4k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    3y

    Try to get the Rent Ledger from either the previous landlord or have the tenant get it from their landlords or print from a tenant portal.

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  • Nathan McBride
    OP
    Real Estate Agent · Baton Rouge, LA · Member since 2017 · 82 posts · 85 votes
    3y
    Quote from @Michael Smythe:

    Try to get the Rent Ledger from either the previous landlord or have the tenant get it from their landlords or print from a tenant portal.


     That's exactly what my employee proposed.  Thanks for the recommendation.

    While I would like to have the opportunity to ask screening questions of the previous LL, at the end of the day ontime rent payments are priority #1.

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