What services do you use to run criminal background and eviction checks on rental applicants, and do you always run these reports when screening applicants?
mysmartmove.com
Yes, always.
Also, if an applicant asked to give you a copy of their credit report rather than you running it yourself, is that a cause for concern?
Nope, we have to run it. Too many ways they can easily manipulate it that way. Plus the credit check verifies who they say they are. We tell them "Sorry, everyone has to run through the system, that's part of the application process that can't be skipped. Feel free to give us the copy you have too, but it still needs to happen on our end as well."
The reason given was that she did not want the check to negatively impact her score.
Let them know it doesn't affect their score - it's not an application for credit, an inquiry initiated by them won't affect their score.
More often I hear them saying they want to do it to save on the cost - just charge an "application fee" that covers that, and say they still need to pay the application fee.
