Tenant screening facts that make HUGE differences
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- Опубликовано: 5 окт 2024
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One of the most important things that a Landlord can do is conduct careful screening of every prospective tenant. This step alone can prevent most of the costliest errors in in the landlording business. However, sometimes a tenant will indicate something about themselves that doesn't get your full attention at first. If you see one of these red flags, and you simply ignore it, you may later regret not having paid more attention when you could have.
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The Law Office of Ernie Garcia stands out for its unparalleled expertise in landlord-tenant law, providing essential support to Texas landlords, apartment communities, and real estate investment firms. Whether it’s delivering legal notices, filing lawsuits, or defending landlords against tenant lawsuits and HOA or tax foreclosures, Ernie’s firm has done it all. Ernie Garcia, a distinguished landlord attorney with over 14 years of real estate law experience.
Additionally, The Law Office of Ernie Garcia assists clients with drafting Leases, Deeds, and Notices. He routinely delivers Notice to Vacate, Notice of Lease Termination, or Notice of Non-renewal for Landlords seeking to end a Lease relationship with a bad tenant. Ernie Garcia shows clients how the Eviction process can improve Tenant cooperation and reduces the potentially enormous losses that come from continued instances of partial and late payments.
Who you choose to work with really matters. Experience the difference of partnering with an attorney who truly cares. We are proud to deliver top-notch service to help our clients reach their business and personal goals. Whether you're looking to file an eviction, update your lease, or need help with a difficult tenant, The Law Office of Ernie Garcia, PLLC is here to shoulder the burden of tough litigation to put you in the best possible legal position to win, win win!
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The information and materials made available on this video are provided by The Law Office of Ernie Garcia, PLLC for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. The transmission and receipt of the information in this video does not form or constitute an attorney-client relationship. Individuals receiving said information should not act upon it without seeking professional legal counsel. "
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Sold my second home last year and decided to rent until I could find my next home. What I should have done was conduct a background check on my landlord. Some time ago on a place I was renting, the landlord wasn't paying the mortgage and the sheriff department showed up at my door. I guess the owners had lost the house and didn't bother to tell me.
Yeah, that's a problem. It's not common, but it does happen, and it would be really hard to find out beforehand.
It's not difficult. I just didn't suspect at the time. Check property records for delinquent taxes. Check civil and criminal court records. Court cases will show up like driving under the influence, probation, # of housing disputes, divorces, delinquent child support, shoplifting, etc. Then decide if you want to rent from people like this. Good luck on getting your deposit back.
@@paratroopergirl4064 Most people would never think to do this.
Landlords require require references, credit checks, and criminal background checks on tenants. Why is this not a standard, reciprocal procedure?
@user-lz6dm5lk9y Most people seek the path with the least resistance, even at their own risk, and they tend to defer to authority and take for granted that a business (in this case a landlord) is on the up and up.
Your tips are great! Landlords should look at applicants like they’re applying for a job. Except it’s even more important because we can fire employees!
Agreed. Once they're locking into a residence, it's difficult to get them out, especially if they're professional tenants who know the game well.
Hi can i have your number please?
Very good tips. I once had a couple who applied to rent my house. I liked them but then I noticed that the wife failed to list her driver license number on the application. When I asked her about it, she said that she had not gotten around to getting her license yet ( she was bout 30 years old). She was driving her kids around in the family van without a license. In the end I rejected them because she was driving without a license, which to me was a red flag.
Thanks for sharing your personal experience. I appreciate it.
Wow everything he said the tenants i have evicted. Checked every box. 😮
It's a widespread thing that most landlords just haven't been involved in long enough to have seen.
We do not call the former landlord. We don't call for recommendations
we ASK FOR PROOF
1- we run their credit,EVICTION,and criminal records. 2- less than one year at the previous address is a NO. 3-We ask for PROOF of rent paid on time, TO WHOM, how Much. Cancelled checks, copies of Bank statements, receipts. We ask for pictures of their former apartment building showing the front and their front door and living room and kitchen. Last 6 pays tubs. We do NOT take out of State or out the country. If the prospect just walk in and out and ask how much is a NO, NO.
Great. Thanks for sharing your experience!
Local applicants only?
I would also recommend checking the condition of their vehicle. If it looks like mobile trash dump.... guess what their olace is gonna look like? People that take care of things, usually care well for their place too.
Great suggestion!
Good video. I ran into everyone of the scenarios. Now I trust the criteria you talked about. That usually adds an extra month to get the right person, but it's sure worth it.
It's nice to hear from people who have tested this stuff out. It should make sense that passing on bad offers is better than taking the first offer made, but some people get anxious and can't play the long game.
Great markers...we are still cleaning up our home from a cat hoarder. We have learned so much about cleaning cat urine!!! All mahagony baseboards,door framings had to be removed sanded and oiled. Drywall cut throughout the house. Hand scraping wooden floors...did I mention my right hand is fried? We have another 3 months of hard labor ahead but we are going to win and we will definately remember your pointers. I hope if we sign a new lease I do not have to sign individual leases for a roommate, for example. It would seem much easier to just enforce against one person.
This generally depends on the state. I can only speak to my home state Pennsylvania. What we would do is do an application for each occupant over 18 and do one lease with all the names on that lease. If at any point you need to take them to court you can take them all or any of them to court and the same with judgments for damages and unpaid rents.
In the situation where I had a tenant that had a roommate on the lease and one wanted to leave I had to approve the replacement roommate and draw up a new month to month lease. Dealing with the security deposit on that I told the remaining tenant that they needed to handle that division themselves, since at all times they were holding the entire possession of the unit I was going to always hold the full deposit.
Usually the person who signed the lease is responsible for the rent
Everything said is right, but..... @ 3:00 I moved into an old house and When the A/C broke, as the landlord is finishing with the repairman "This means I'll have to go up on your rent when it renews!" He was abrasive and harsh. He refused to care for his own property. I replaced the faulty toilet with a new one out of my own pocket. NEVER late with my rent. After 6 years I left the place in better condition than when I moved in! His wife even made the comment that I did!. So YES SOME LANDLORDS ARE SLUM LORDS AND WON'T PUT MONEY INTO THEIR OWN PROPERTY. I have rental property now and I'll NEVER be that guy.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
you are a very unusual tenant. Don't expect any of your tenants to be like yourself !
So much good advice here. Great video.
One of my recent tenants is one that probably said I was horrible. They were horrible and had been given notice. They expected that I'd give them a good reference however that wasn't so.
I hope this is helpful for you in the future. When tenants violate the lease nonstop, I encourage written notices. Nothing proves a bad tenancy like a hand full of Notices of Default, especially when they claim, "What problems? I was a perfect tenant."
@LandlordAttorney yep they were perfect. Their emotional support pet infested the building with fleas we didn't get rid of till they left but when we said after spraying 2x you need to take you dog to the groomer the dog never had fleas. They never made loud noise a 3 am waking everyone else up multi times they didn't break windows and cabnet doors. They removed all their belongings and trash too, yeah right. Sounds perfect to me lol
@MrMikey1273 Thanks for sharing. Personal experience goes a long way, especially with new landlords just learning the process.
@@MrMikey1273 this is why i am going to eviction court right now. one of my neighbors did all of these plus dog poop all over my yard ,porch, bed bugs,ants and roaches.
loud bassy music from 7pm to 3am in the morning. and on purpose. fighting, acting like tough guy or gangsta rapper. and fighting his wife and women all day.
and landlord not doing nothing about it. so i force the neighbors to stop it.
@@rickymcgruder4868 gross and annoying. Hope it ends for you soon.
You can get paid rent 1 year in advance, and still kick them out for other lease violations. Sure, a partial refund might be in order, but schedule monthly inspections to make sure that are not tearing the place apart.
Monthly might be a bit much. Quartly visits will probably do, but, yes, inspections are a must.
Im watching some of your videos so if i decide to rent out my condo later in life,ill be prepared. I swear the scary stories i hear about people tearing up the place,not wanting to pay,not wanting to leave..my tenant will be 80😅
Sounds good! But many problems stem from landlords being too passive in their approach. If a landlord actively screens for a good tenant, actively communicates with that tenant, and actively monitors the property, 90% of the problems we talk about go right out the window. The rest is manageable stuff.
Paying your rent upfront isn’t bad. When I go to nursing school and can only work part time while in school I’m using my tax money to pay my rent yearly to take care of that while in school. I can not wait to get out from under landlords. It’s just going to keep getting ridiculous. I also like to pay my water and electricity bills upfront. Oh and same with my car insurance. There’s nothing wrong with wanting your paycheck as free money 🤷🏻♀️ it’s called being smart with your money. And yes when I buy a house I’m doing the same thing. Paying as much as I can on my mortgage for the year with taxes ✌️✌️
Thanks for your information.
You're very welcome!
Whare are you located?
@@ednalozano2222 My office is located in Houston, but we serve clients all over the State of Texas.
Another great video, thank you. Re methods of communication. You mentioned email. If a landlord and tenant routinely communicate via email about maintenance and other issues, are those emails admissible in court as legitimate evidence as to what transpired between landlord and tenant over the course of the tenancy? Or, are only hard copy communications considered as evidence?
If the parties agreed to email communication, that communication should be admissible. However, the rules of evidence in your state or a Judge's local rules may require hard paper copies of that communication for admissibility. It's always good to take both digital and paper copies whenever possible.
In city with 2 universities and a large community college serving many internstional students, indeed a valid person appears to rent with all good credentials. BUT one month into school term the unit is full of foreign students, over capacity, chain smoking and up late partying. It is an issue for the surrounding non student dwellers, and the landlord is stuck with a lease but unknown tenants.
This is where you drop the Notice to Vacate for Unauthorized occupants and probably smoking.
DYNAMIC!~ Been LL for 30+ Yrs and missed a few screening measures. Note: I always ask for 3 yrs back taxes. The good prospects don't mind.
Thanks for sharing
Should you reason to run😂😂😂😂.. Not in California. They have already made "running" illegal in California. I heard of a "you have to accept the first applicant" law in a city in California.
I used to invest in Cleveland Ohio. I'm now selling everything. The corruption is too huge. Tenant didn't pay for two. Been going to court since December, 2021. Tenant got a free lawyer and I had to pay for mine.
Yeah. I've noticed how certain parts of the country are diving deeper and deeper in the tenants' direction. This will likely be met with a pushback against these reforms, but not before we see massive changes in the market. It's rough on landlords in some places.
I'm a landlord and had a tenant offer to pay one year in advance. It was way too suspicious for me and I declined them.
It's not always bad, but it's always worth investigating.
Watch movie Pacific Heights.
@@LandlordAttorney I've often heard people say "Oh if they pay rent in advance you can't get them out"... is there any truth in that? If they are destroying the house, not following rules and I'm evicting for one of those reasons, what difference does it make that they've paid in advance?
@kimberlindy A refund might be in order, but some prepaid rent my be able to be applied to the damages.
I had a tenant that did that, and it was because he was going to be out of the country for part of the year and sublet the house without permission. We couldn't get hold of him, so we went to the door and here was this unknown person living there. We got him out quick.
Can I get a list of these disqualifying items that the perspective tenants have to physically sign off and acknowledge.
IE :
Have you ever filed for bankruptcy ETC.
Thanks
Actually, your best bet is to have all criteria listed out beforehand for the prospective tenant to sign and acknowledge before the application process begins. This way, you can prove what your standard is and have disqualified applicants limited to those who didn't take the time to read before signing
6 tenants over 12 years. The only good one was the most surprising one to me. The ones who had no red flags were not good, but the worst was the “friend” I let live there. I know. I know.
Some flags are less red than others.
never rent to friends or family, you might have to kick them out !
Good advice.
Thanks.
Thanks for sharing. I gave up on renting my property as tenants destroyed my pry and the property managers took advantage of me too. Now I'm just renting the rooms but it still gets problems. I understand there are new laws now for landlords here in California. Can you help me where to get that new California law ? Thanks so much.
I know a good landlord attorney in California: The Kian Law Group, Inc.
(949) 424-8206
g.co/kgs/Jtj27GX
After you get a application back, go to their existing residence and tell them you need to come in and discuss the application. If they don't let you in RED FLAG, the place is a disaster, if they even live there at all. !
That can be complicated for a number of reasons, but I agree that this kind of investigation would reveal a lot about your potential tenant.
OK, Ernie, how about this scenario: in the past, I've had prospective tenants say, "I'll need to bring my emotional support pit bulls with me." Fortunately, at the time, I had several qualified prospects to choose from, and did not have to rent to her. How to handle that if it comes up again? I am in CA.
Well, all I know is that Texas has made it an actual crime to misrepresent that an animal is an ESA when it isn't.
your lease should ban all dangerous animals.
@@TheRogerhill1234 There are crazy laws in CA that prevent a lease that forbids emotional support animals, I'm sorry to say. Even dangerous ones. We need to remove the CA woke virus and return to common sense.
You are so right when you say to look at their Instagram or their Facebook or their Twitter account I do all of that
Awesome!
What if an applicant says that their social media was just not updated? Could your denial based off of social media discrepancies protect you if an applicant wanted to accuse you of discrimination? How would you phrase your criteria to CYA in a case like this? I recently had applicants say they were single, but FB said they were married. Is it enough to put in your criteria that any incorrect or false information may result in denial? For the record, I have not updated my Linkedin in a very long time.
As I mention in the video, no one piece of data should be cause for denial unless it's a big glaring problem. But if you find something and ignore it, that could haunt you later. If you find something, you should ask. There might be a reasonable explanation, but it might also lead to confirmation of misrepresentation. Take it all together when making this decision. Denial of someone with multiple strikes is easier than denial based on one speculative issue.
I had a S8 applicant who I found online had gotten married the year before. Claiming broke and single to S8 to steal benefits a 10 year waiting list of people need. Pass.
@@kimberlindy This is what I mean. Thanks for sharing.
@@LandlordAttorney So if you ask them and they flat out lie, then you have to accept their lie and go through with application process? I would think that saying that no one else will live with you on your application, but having a spouse and family on all of your social media would be a big glaring problem and a mispresentation on an application. What is best practice here?
@@veramats The best practice for this issue is to make sure that all adults who will occupy the lease sign the lease as tenants. Any minors who will simply be occupants are listed on the lease as such and their ages are clearly identified. If it turns out that some unauthorized occupants are now on the property, the landlord should issue a Notice of Default for that breach. If the matter is not resolved, do it again and again. After three or more attempts to resolve this with written notice, you may want to issue a Notice to Vacate for multiple instances of breach. You cover who will be living on the property at lease signing. If you know about other potential occupants, feel free to ask about them at that time and inform the tenant that unauthorized occupancy will be met with a Notice of Default and potentially a Notice to Vacate and an Eviction.
Yes, got burnt in the pass, but I sniff them out now. Stick to the criteria, no waivering.
It's a lesson you don't need to learn twice.
4:10,😂ive done this,could afford it at the time and decided to pay up for the year. One huge bill i didnt have to worry about,but i get it,a few people mess it up for the good ones
I would say that good communication clears this one right up, but when the tenant won't explain or the landlord won't ask, that's when the potential for trouble lurks around a corner.
Thanks for your reply
You are very welcome.
I had a 17 year squatter/ a nightmare that almond never ended.
17 years is a long time. Did it take you 17 years in the court system? That sounds excessive.
I just got rid of a 6.5 years. Nothing but hell till I got him out
7:32 PREACH😮😮😮😮
There was a lot of this during the pandemic, and now some landlords have an unrealistic expectation that a charity or government agency will puck up their tenant's tab as needed. But those funds have dried up, and they were never going to be a long-term solution to the fact that the tenant could not afford the rent on their own
My landlord verbally assaulted me for no valid reason then physically assaulted me when he couldnt get his way..I had to call the police. Hes broken laws and Im not the first tenant hes done this to. We dont owe him money. No I wont be using him for a reference. Im suing him. Stop blaming tenants for everything. Some landlords shouldnt be landlords because they lack communication skills and business professionalism. They act like Overlords. Time to drop the term Landlord period.
I don't control the words we use for calling people stuff, so for now, I'll stick with "landlord." Are there landlord red flags and bad landlord characteristics? Yes. Of course, but that wasn't the topic of this video. The fact that bad landlords exist doesn't change the fact that bad tenants are out there, and good landlords should avoid bad tenants. Just the same, good tenants should avoid bad landlords
Hi my question is the tenants are allowing their kids to scratch up furniture and write on the wall how do I go about getting them to speak to their kids about this.
Money is the answer. Send a Notice of Default andca bill for the costs to rehab the home. Give them a reasonable amount of time to pay, say 10 to 14 days. If they do it again, repeat until it stops, or 3 strikes, and they're out for repeated destruction of property. Here's a video with ideas on this topic: ruclips.net/video/NNpeSy-0AT8/видео.htmlsi=6KWhAFiECBjAw6DC
I was always a clean quiet tenant and I never ever paid my rent late but my landlord was always a rotten POS.
No Instagram check - over reach/
my persona is Not my rental hisrory
Maybe, but I'll check it out anyway.