Inherited tenants

[Wesley W.]

Hello all,

I'm currently under contract to buy a fully-occupied multi-family property.  This is the first time I will have inherited tenants that are on a year lease (as opposed to month-to-month).

One lease expires in January 2016; the other in April of 2016.

My concern is, even though I am obligated to honor their leases, I don't know anything about them beyond their names.  When I rent out to tenants, I have them fill out an application and do background/credit checks on them.  The current owner has none of that.

I have two questions (thusfar):

(1)  Is there anything I can do to compel the tenants to provide me that information?  The lease (obviously) doesn't speak to this issue.  If not, any ideas/advice if I encounter resistance from them?  (There is typically a "power struggle" when one inherits tenants, in my experience.)

(2)  Is this something I should be concerned about and dig my heels in with the seller?  Is that a reasonable request?  Or should I let sleeping dogs lie until lease expiration?  I'm assuming they are not "problem tenants", but I have almost no information upon which to base this assumption.

I know there are dozens of you out there that have had a similar situation over the course of your own ventures.  How did you handle it?

Thanks in advance for your collective wisdom!