Not a lawyer, no legal advice, but HUD just released guidelines of a sort explaining that criminal backgrounds should be judged on a case by case basis, not a standard, no criminal record clause.  

It seems like every story I hear where someone accepted prepaid rent for a year, the tenant turns out to be involved in drugs or criminal activity.

I see small chinks in the landlord dam...for instance landlords supposed to disregard criminal records and today as a real life example I had an offer on a house and they potential buyers had $100 down !

Did you do any background, criminal, job verification?

I would still run a credit/criminal check to make sure they check out. 

Criminal record? 

Will call again on MondayNo criminal background for either- except he has speeding SPD 76/60Eviction, foreclosure, bankruptcy- this is their story they use to have a house before moving into the apartment 3 years ago.

Or they can't find someone to rent to them because they have horrible credit or evictions, or a criminal background.So, which is it? 

We fired one of our property managers a few weeks ago and are now hearing about issues of negligence and possible criminal activity with missing tenant payments and/or not properly handling security deposits.  

Now we have uncovered the fact that they are not using our furnished lease, providing us tenants with criminals records and worse, and collecting late fees from tenants but not crediting them to us.Recently I partnered on a few houses with a friend of mine and he is now like a terrier on a mouse - once he found an single issue he went wild investigating.