Tenant Screening Services in Ontario, Canada

[Salma Valimohamed]

Hello All, With regards to the critical step of tenant screening, I am considering using a tenant screening service for new applications. I have 2 apartment buildings (closing next month) in a small town in Ontario, Canada. Currently the properties are fully tenanted, which means I will be inheriting all the current tenants. Moving forward though, I would like to implement more comprehensive screening procedures. I have come across various services (Buildium, Naborly, Tenant Verification Services) but I am not familiar with any of them. Combined, there are 32 residential units, so I think it may be worth outsourcing the checks. Are you using any of the above? Is it worth the $30-50/ screening? What is the quality of screening like? How broad is the Canadian database? Thanks in advance for the insight!

[Matt Geerts]

Bearing in mind that Ontario LTB wants landlords to slip up so they can make a spectacle of slapping them around, take the following advice with a HUGE warning that you must not violate any human rights, discriminate, etc. 

I don't have a huge amount of experience, but before I even owned a rental I read a LOT about how horrible it can be to get a bad tenant in Ontario and I read about a lot of ways to make sure you reduce your odds of getting one. With all that research I developed a plan:

5 steps:

1 - Write your ad:  "Credit check required, landlord and professional references required, no pets, no smoking, no exceptions" - this will self-eliminate most of the weak ones.

2 - The phone call: Ask open-ended questions and stay dead silent until they are done talking. People love to say too much if you'd just let them. Ask them things like "Tell me why you'd like to move to this area", "Tell me why you're moving out of your current place", "Tell me about your current landlord" (this is a fun one), "What can I expect to see when I pull a full credit report?". "Do you have pets?" and "Do you smoke" are not open-ended, but they will allow you to catch the ones that ignored the "no exeptions" in the ad. "Yes, I smoke but I smoke outside always" is 100% of the time a lie; they smoke inside when it suits them.

3 - The showing: Reiterate the whole open-ended questions game. Also, and I am not joking, sniff them. Literally, discretely, sniff them. You'll catch their lies about smoking and pets, and you'll quickly get to know how clean they'll keep your place - dirty smelly people don't keep clean houses. Give them an application or let them fill one out right there, but absolutely demand that it is complete.

4 - Credit check and references: Do the check. Call ALL of the references. Call the employer, talk to two people. Discriminate hard (but never say you did) against low credit scores. If they can't pay a phone bill without fail, they can't pay a rent bill without fail.

5 - The drop-in: This is my favorite part! You go to near their current residence and call them up. You say "I am nearby and I have the lease for you to sign, and I'll pick up first and last checks". You can choose if you'd like to imply that not letting you come by will hurt their chances. When you get there, observe how they live. Again, sniff. This will tell you a HUGE amount about the type of people you are dealing with.

It is 1000% more important that you get a GOOD tenant than you get ANY tenant. A vacant rental unit costs you money, but one occupied by a bad tenant costs you a LOT of money. The chronic bad tenants know how to play the system, and when they see that you have your defenses up they will move on to an easier sucker. 

So... where's "a small town in Ontario"?