- Your gut may not be a very good judge and

- Gut feel is not legal

It is important for you to be acquainted with the legal issues surrounding screening to avoid any unnecessary problems.

In the first place, you are allowed to gather where these kinds of information about your prospect of tenant such as employment history, references from previous landlords, details of income and evictions if any and credit history. You are also allowed to charge a screening fee to cover the cost of very fine information though it would be a good idea to reimburse the tenant should you go through with the rental. In the second place, you’ll be required to deal fairly with all tenants so it is a good idea to put your policy down on paper for instance how do you view past convictions or poor credit history or pets. Having made these rules follow them strictly so that you can demonstrate that there has been no discrimination in a particular rejection. Be totally honest with the prospective tenant and if you rejected him on the basis of a poor credit score or information from a data service, then say so.

Legal issues aside, use the following process for the actual screening:

1) Devise an appropriate tenant application form that provides you with all the relevant details. Also incorporate permission for you to run the necessity credit and background checks. There are plenty of free specimen forms available on the Internet

2) Start by verifying the employment data. Since it is easy for a prospective tenant to provide you with the name and address of a friend to pose as the employer just get the company name and look up the number for yourself. Speak to the supervisor and check the employment details and salary

3) If you are satisfied, you can proceed to start the credit and background check. There are a number of data services only perform these checks for you. One important decision that you need to make especially in these troubled economic times is what level of credit worthiness is acceptable to you since a number of otherwise decent tenants may not have good credit scores

4) Get in touch with the current landlord and enquire about the rental. To has he been paid on time, is his property maintained properly, has he had any complaints and so on.

Finally be sure that the prospective tenant has understood your policy clearly and that any breach thereof such as delayed rent payment would be grounds for immediate eviction. In fact I would recommend that you send out eviction notices for the first few breaches even if you have no intention of following through. An eviction notice will work like a charm in getting the full attention of your tenant.

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