Tenant Screening

[Dale Plant]

Hello fellow Canadians I was wondering if you screen your tenants with credit and criminal record checks. If so, how do you do it or which services do you use?

If you do these checks do you charge an application fee and how much do you charge?

Thank you;

[Roy N.]

@Ming Lim

@Ming Lim

We rent to many student tenants as well and perform all of our own screening. We also charge a very modest application fee ($20.00) which typically serves to weed out those candidates who would not even come close to qualifying. If a candidate is successful, we apply their application fee towards their security deposit.

We use both Rent Check and Tenant Verification Services (TVS) for our credit and rental history checks {They are the only two players in this end of the country}.

Like you, we typically require a guarantor for most student tenants and perform a credit check on the guarantor as well.

We also have a building which caters to international students (renting furnished rooms). In the case of foreign students, a credit check is normally not possible (unless they have been in the country for a few years), but where we are renting rooms (typically month-to-month) we take a security deposit and can always send someone packing with 30-days notice. Ironically, we never have problems with our foreign students - they are paying dearly to attend university and are not about to waste their time or ability to be in the Country by partying or getting into trouble.

Criminal record checks are difficult to perform, and of marginal utility, in Canada due to the privacy laws. Usually all you can find out is whether an individual has a record and perhaps whether there are multiple offences.

You should be aware that in most Canadian jurisdictions {Ontario amongst them, I believe} you legally cannot legally collect rent for the entire lease in advance ... usually you can only collect a security deposit and/or the last months rent, plus rent for the next period.