What Can a Landlord Include in a Tenant Background Check?

There are several reasons for landlords to conduct background checks on every prospective renter. These checks can help determine whether a tenant will be respectful, safe, trustworthy, and able to pay rent regularly and on time. They can also help identify potential indications of a tenant’s predilection for violence, posing a threat to neighbors, or financial instability due to poor credit history.

What does a tenant background check include, and how can this information help a landlord decide who to trust? 

1. TransUnion: One of the three major credit reporting bureaus, offers landlords a convenient online system for tenant background screenings. This service, called SmartMove, includes the following elements in each background check. 

2. Credit Report: Credit scores and credit history are important considerations for landlords seeking reliable tenants. By showing payment history, credit utilization, credit availability, and overall credit score—among other factors—a credit report gives a landlord a sense of a prospective tenant’s financial reliability. A poor credit report might indicate that a tenant won’t be able to make payments on time, while a strong credit report helps dispel financial concerns. 

3. Income Insights: Besides understanding their credit, landlords like to know that their tenants are gainfully employed or have a stable income. An income insight report can show the landlord what a prospective tenant earns monthly and how much would be absorbed by rent. A tenant’s lower rent ratio is more manageable, which can instill confidence in the landlord. Higher rent ratios may indicate tenants trying to rent beyond their financial means. 

4. Criminal History: Criminal history checks can help landlords protect themselves, the property they own, and other residents in their building or nearby properties. A prospective tenant with a history of violent crimes or sexual offenses may pose a threat to residents and neighbors. A landlord might also reject a tenant who has been convicted of serious drug possession or methamphetamine production to avoid a situation in which their property is used for this damaging and dangerous process. For these reasons and others, criminal history searches are critical to any tenant background check. 

5. Eviction Reports: Rental history is another essential component of the tenant background screening process. A tenant evicted from a property in the past may be a risk to a landlord. In general, rental history can be a good indicator of the kind of renter a tenant will be. 

In addition to these screenings, a tenant background check might include reference checks (including communication with previous landlords), address history checks, and alias checks. The latter two searches can help flesh out the criminal history screening process.

However, many changes to the tenant background screening process are underway, creating rapidly growing regulatory burdens.

Effective September 2024, we discontinued our services for tenant and related credit screening. As this market is not our core focus, we are prioritizing our primary offerings.