Background / Credit check and when

[Kyle Coleman]

Hello BP,

I have a pretty simple question, do you guys require all persons over 18+ to be on the lease (I do), and do you run background / credit checks on all of them, or just the people or person paying rent?

Thanks!

Kyle

[Paul Ronto]

That helps for sure, thanks for supplying. This is a tough one. If she is family and not responsible for any of the rent, it could go either way. If she's not on the lease, she's technically a "Guest" which some landlords have issues with long-term guests, so you could ask for screening verification based on that if it's in your lease. 

I would say if you are going to add her to the lease obviously do a screening report, and no matter the system you are using you'll most likely have to have them "apply" since you otherwise won't have their personal information to run the background checks. You cannot connect a background check to another person, the way the credit agencies work is each pull needs to have unique identifiers like name, SS#, address, DOB at minimum. 

Good luck, hope this helps, let us know how it goes.