When we onboarded Mr T, his top goal was to fill his recently vacated apartments with good tenants. A few of his previous tenants couldn’t renew their rent after year 1 and had to leave.
We met him at the right time or should we say, He met us at the right time?
Our proprietary tenant assessment tool helps us score tenants on a scale of 5 to 10 so the risks associated with each tenant is clear. Before scoring though, basic background check is done in this order:

1. Confirm that tenant works where they claim they work at
2. Get testimonial from past apartment
3. Confirm stable average income
4. Confirm that there are no criminal records
5. Confirm spousal/family information.

Letting agents always tell landlords that they’ve verified information provided by prospective tenants. That’s exactly what Mr T was told. Our suggestion to landlords is that it’s better to lose one week doing very detailed background checks (Landlord heaven has a 15-point checklist for this) rather than losing several years rent later when bad tenants go rogue.

Here’s what we found:

This proposed tenant gave a fake office address. No one identified as his wife in the company where He claimed his wife worked. His past address didn’t check out either. Apparently, He assumed this was business as usual and no one would check to verify claims. We didn’t have to do too much to spot his dishonesty.
The great thing about our processes is that we always have multiple potential tenants. Just one week later, we had filled this apartment with a tenant whose work and income history we could verify and vouch for.