by Amanda Ines

Created on: August 14, 2010

To prove the importance of a tenant background check, I will outline my own personal experience that I had and still have with a tenant who unfortunately I didn't check out at all!

He was a young 21 year old boy who came along with his mother and hardly said a word while he left the mother to do all the talking. It was as if he wasn't even really interested in the house at all and with hindsight I should have realised that it was more the mother who wanted him to rent the house (so relieving herself of his presence in our own house) than him. He didn't seem to care about anything and just shrugged his shoulders at everything that was asked of him.

I did ask a few basic questions like - where did he work? - with his mother of course, as probably no one else would hire him!. did he know how to keep a house clean? - another shrug of the shoulders! did he have a bank account? - sure he did but he didn't want to tell me where it was.

These obviously weren't testing enough questions and if with the answers to these I already felt quite uneasy about renting and handing my home over to this individual, if I had been just a little bit more thorough I might have spared myself a lot of hardship and trouble in deciding not to rent my home to him. But at the end of the day it is clear that I was very foolish here and somehow because I needed the rental avoided seeing the clear signs of trouble ahead!

1. I should have asked for two months deposit instead of one (this shows that the person has some savings and doesn't live life to the limits all the time).

2. I could have asked him to give me a bank guarantee in that if he didn't pay the rent then at least his bank would have done so.

3. The rental contract should have been signed in front of a notary and although doing this costs about € 150 it at least gives the landlord a little more protection should clauses in the contract not be adhered to.

4, I should have asked for previous work references, bank references and in this case character references from his school.

5. And lastly and most importantly I should have followed my gut instinct and said 'no', that I didn't want to rent my home out to this person that seemed anything but responsible.

What has happened to me in the end is that firstly he no longer pays me rent as, in his own words, he has better things to do with his money than pay rent.

His mother tells me that she can't help me here and that I should try and evict him and that if I want she will give him

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>