My Phantom Tenant picked by my ex-PM company

[Cal C.]

I recently evicted a tenant who had never lived in my property.  He had signed the lease as a favor for his sister in law (a professional tenant).  I could go on and on about this tenancy, but that is not the reason for this post.  I did write about the eviction a little here http://beta.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/117209-a-lesson-learned-in-court

Normally, this is fairly easy to prevent with a few pertinent questions to the applicant, but when it is a PM company, particularly a large one that is unwilling to share much information about an applicant, it may be very difficult to ascertain who will actually be living in the property.   You need to discuss these types of issues in depth with any Property Management company that you employ.  Ask them point blank how do they determine if the applicant is actually going to be the one living in the property.  

Obviously there will be some who slip through the cracks, but the vast majority of false flag applicants can be screened out with the right questions.