There are many horror stories of unimaginable property damage, rent delay, and sometimes arrests or fines due to tenant irresponsibility. So, one of the best things you can do for yourself as a landlord or property manager is to choose reliable and responsible tenants.

When listing their credit scores and references, applicants may seem like an excellent fit for your property, but asking their past landlords will give you a detailed view of how they treat the properties they lease. Rental verification forms help you to request applicants’ rental histories to ensure they will use your property responsibly. It typically asks questions about the applicant’s rental payment history, credit score, eviction history, and other relevant details.

So, let’s go over the details of tenant verification forms and how to use them to select the best tenants for your apartment.

What is a Rental Verification Form?

A rent verification form is a document that allows landlords to assess prospective tenants by evaluating their rental history and behavior, taking into account information from previous landlords or real estate agents. It allows you to make informed decisions about potential tenants, helping you to secure responsible tenants who will respect and care for the property.

A significant reason for using a rental verification form is that most tenants would claim a clean and responsible rental history if you ask them directly, even if they don’t. Sometimes, the applicants are not even deliberately dishonest; they just don’t have an objective view of how they treated the property. 

Asking their past landlords or property managers gives you an objective view of how applicants handled other landlords’ properties and could potentially handle yours. So, your rental verification forms should ask questions about the applicant’s rental payment history, credit score, eviction history, and more.

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Components of a Rental Verification Form

The goal of rental verification forms is to help you gather comprehensive information about a potential tenant’s rental history.  So, here are a couple of questions to help you get accurate and relevant information to judge potential tenant suitability for your property:

• Applicant Personal Details: This includes the questions about the applicant, such as their full name, previous address, and lease dates.
• Previous Landlord Information: Contact details for the previous landlord or property manager to ensure previous addresses and rental history are true.
• Rental History: Applicant’s tenancy duration at different properties, including the start and end dates of the lease. This helps you see how long tenants have stayed at different properties and the properties they stayed in, allowing you to confirm the details with their previous landlords.
• Payment History: This collects dates tenant paid their rent at previous properties. Comparing these details with their rental history can help you see their track record of paying rent on time and, in total, throughout the previous tenancy. You can also collect applicant bank statements to understand their financial stability.
• Reason for Leaving: Ask both the tenant and previous landlord why the tenant left the former property. This can give you insight into the circumstances of the move and potential red flags (e.g., eviction due to property damage).
• Maintenance Issues: While this might not necessarily fall on the tenant, ask about past landlords’ maintenance issues that arose during the applicant’s tenancy and their responsiveness to resolving them.
• Pet Ownership: Pet ownership can also be problematic if the pets can potentially harm other tenants. For example, a tenant having an untrained or aggressive dog could put other tenants’ lives at risk. So, ask applicants if they own any pets or plan on having one. Also, ask former landlords if tenants owned any pets during their tenancy and if the pets contributed to any damage to the property. 
• Overall Assessment/Review: finally, leave an open-ended section to allow the landlord to provide a general assessment of the applicant as a tenant, considering factors like cleanliness, noise levels, and respect for house rules.

Why are Rental Verification Forms Necessary?

While credit and reference checks provide valuable information, a tenant’s rental verification form gives you a concrete and detailed view of their past rental history through the lens of their previous landlords. Here are some of the major reasons you should always verify potential tenants rental history: 

• Gauging Tenant Reliability and Responsibility: Rental verification forms help you see how well the tenant meets house rules and lease agreements, such as timely rent payments, property maintenance, and vacation notices. These details help you see how responsible tenants are likely to be respectful of your property.
• Financial Responsibility: Past rental payments are a strong indicator of future financial responsibility. Using rental verification forms helps you evaluate an applicant’s financial stability and reduce the risk of late payments or defaults. For example, a tenant who has always paid his rent on time will most likely pay his rent on time at your property.
• Mitigating Risks: Gathering comprehensive information about a tenant’s rental history can help you identify potential red flags, such as evictions or frequent lease terminations. This allows you to mitigate risks associated with problematic tenants and protect their investment.

How to Fill Out a Rental Verification Form (For Landlords & Property Managers)

Here’s how to make sure you collect relevant, accurate, and unbiased information about each applicant:

1. Collect Candidate information: Collect essential details about the applicant, including their full name, previous rental address and landlord, and lease dates.
2. Contact the Previous Landlord: Use the provided contact information on the applicant’s rental history section to contact their previous landlord or property manager. Introduce yourself and explain your purpose for requesting a rental verification.
3. Collect Landlord Response: Collect applicant rental history data, such as dates and rent amounts, from the landlord and cross-check to ensure they match and are accurate.
4. Maintain Confidentiality:  While rental verification is intended to verify applicant information, tenants also have rights and are entitled to confidential data treatment. Only share relevant details with authorized personnel concerned, such as a previous landlord or property manager.
5. Data Protection: From collection to storage, ensure you implement appropriate data protection measures to safeguard tenant information collected through the rental verification forms. A good way to do this is to use an end-to-end encrypted form that ensures respondent data is protected while you are collecting the information. Also, implement access control to your storage to ensure no one tampers with the records.

Tips for Gathering Information from Previous Landlords/Property Managers

• Be polite and professional when contacting the previous landlord.
• Be straightforward- immediately explain the purpose of the verification and the information you need from them.
• Avoid using unclear and vague language in your rental verification form. Make sure the applicants and previous landlords can easily understand your questions. Vulgar and difficult language can make it hard for landlords to understand the information you need from them, and they may provide you with out-of-context answers.
• Finally, if the previous landlord is unavailable, consider alternative verification methods, such as contacting the property management company or obtaining bank statements reflecting rent payments.

Potential Challenges and Solutions

Although rental verification forms are valuable, they can sometimes be challenging to implement. Here’s a look at some of the typical obstacles of using rental verification forms and strategies for overcoming them:

• Unresponsive Previous Landlords: Sometimes, previous landlords might be difficult to reach or slow to respond. When this happens, try contacting them using different methods, such as phone number, email, or even mail if necessary. However, if you are still unable to reach the landlord, reach out to a property manager within the landlord’s area who might be able to connect you with them.
• Inaccurate Information: There’s always a chance the information provided by the applicant or the previous landlord might be inaccurate, either by foul play or simple errors. Ensure you clearly tell applicants to be upfront and honest with their applicants, as well as disqualification that would happen if there are discrepancies. You could also gather information from alternative sources such as bank statements or past lease agreements the tenant had with other landlords.
• Conflicting Information: If information from different sources contradicts, maintain open communication with the applicant. The next thing to do is to provide the applicant with the opportunity to clarify the situation and provide any supporting documentation they may have. Also, ensure you do this with diplomacy and willingness to hear all sides of the story.

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Legal Considerations

While rental verification forms are valuable, they can also be a legal hassle depending on your country and state housing laws. Here are some key points to ensure you are always on the right side of the law:

• Fair Housing Laws: Federal and state Fair Housing Laws prohibit discrimination against tenants based on protected characteristics like race, religion, or national origin. To prevent discriminatory practices, ensure you use rental verification forms to collect this information.
• Tenant Privacy: Tenant information collected through rental verification forms should be treated with respect for privacy. Only collect information relevant to assessing the applicant’s suitability as a tenant, and do not share this information with anyone outside the rental application process without the tenant’s consent.
• Accuracy and Transparency: Be transparent with applicants about what information will be collected and how it will be used. Also, make sure to give the applicant the choice to stop their application if they are uncomfortable answering your questions.

Conclusion

Rental verification provides valuable insights into an applicant’s rental history, payment habits, and overall tenancy behavior, empowering you to make informed decisions about your tenant selection. Accurate and comprehensive rental verification forms help you to easily spotify suitable and unsuitable applicants and make your decisions.