Getting Info From Current Landlord

[Richie Valadez]

Hi BP community. First post here. Quick intro, my wife and I have been researching and trying to buy properties for the past 15 months (more stories about that later on another post). Finally in October, we made 3 offers and they were all accepted. Now we are up to our eyes in all things RE (which is amazing) and soon to be landlords. We've managed a rental years back, but had no idea what we were doing. We feel more confident this time around but ran into something strange today. We sent over a request to one of our applicant's current landlord for a reference, payment history, etc. We included the authorization to release information and the landlord came back and said their policy was to only release this information once their tenant has submitted a notice to vacate. My applicant does not want to submit the notice until they are approved. I cannot approve until I get the feedback from their current landlord. Has anyone else dealt with this?

[JD Martin]

You should be able to approve or decline a tenant without any info from a former landlord. I trust and believe little of what is told to me; instead, good credit & background checks, employment & income verification, and personal interaction with the potential tenants should just about tell you everything you would need to know. There's no way to know whether a former/current landlord is being honest or vengeful, glad to be rid of the tenant or mad because they're losing a tenant. Most of the better advice is to go one landlord back, as they have no vested interest in the tenant any more, but even there you sometimes run into bad feelings. 

Renting out property is a people business. You interact with people enough and you get a feel for them. You combine that feel with hard credit & criminal evidence, work ethic, and you will usually make good choices. 

PS: We don't even bother doing landlord checks any more. Honest & good tenants will have good references anyway, and liars will be just as likely to put down their aunt or cousin as anything else.