When renting to a tenant or renting to multiple tenants its extremely important to have them fill out a rental application. Rental application form or application to rent form can sometimes be found at your local stationary store like Staples or Office Depot. You can also obtain the form from a tenant screening company, find my list here. Apartment Associations or some may call them landlord associations will also provide the necessary landlord forms. There are local apartment associations and nationwide associations, you can find my lists for them here.
The Application to Rent is one of the most important pieces of information you can gather from a prospective tenant during the tenant screening process. Any information they provide assists you with your decision to rent as well as helps you recover lost rent should they skip out (more on this later).
Here is some of the information you should be requesting from your prospective tenant or new renter when they apply for your apartment for rent or home for rent:
- Tenant full name; include first name, middle name, last name, and any AKA’s
- Tenant address history; ask for 7-10 years of addresses to assist you in their prior living history
- Date of Birth; You cannot base your decision to rent on a tenant’s date of birth, however, many tenant screening reports will require this piece of information. It will also help with the debt collection process should you need to search for them later. Lastly the tenant’s date of birth also assists should a Jr. vs. Sr. issue ever arise.
- Social Security Number; This is required to obtain a credit report or tenant screening background report. The tenant’s social security number can also be used for skip tracing should they leave and owe money. Many tenant screening companies will also provide Social Security Fraud reports, I recommend you obtain one on your prospective tenant.
- Phone numbers. Get their home phone, cell phone, work phone (see below), and any other phone number they will provide. Why are so many tenant phone numbers needed? There are 2 main reasons: (1) to let them know you want to rent to them and (2) to chase after them if the tenant leaves owing you money!
- Work history for 7-10 years. It’s important to know where your prospective new tenant’s income is coming from. Do they have a job? Where is the job? What is the address of the job? Their boss’s name? The phone number to the boss? The title of their job? Their previous and current salary? You want to know all of this information to help in determining if the tenant can afford your rent. A tenant screening report or tenant background check will provide credit and criminal information as well as insight on their debt/credit,, but their current job should still be verified. Employment information also will assist in the debt collection process should the tenant skip out owing you money!
- Banking information is also important. First you’ll need this information to verify the tenant has the money to pay your rent. You want to know they can write you a check each month! (and that it will clear!) Plus, as I stated with other information above, this will help with the debt collection process.
- Tenant’s Relatives and Non-Relatives. This information is helpful for the tenant screening process and the debt collection process. Relatives will help you confirm the type of person your new tenant is, they will also help you locate the tenant when they leave you owing rent. Non-relatives are also important because friendships change over years. Your tenant may list someone that, after moving out, they are no longer friends with. That person may be more than willing to assist you in your debt collection needs.
- Additional Occupants in the apartment. Who else is going to reside in the unit? What is their name? What is their social security number and date of birth? How are they related to your prospective tenant? Depending on the age of the occupant you may want them to sign the rental lease too. You should perform a tenant screening background check on every occupant over the age of 18 even if they aren’t signing a lease!
- Pets. Do they have any pets? Do you even want to allow pets? What kind of pets are they? Age of pet? Type of pet? How big (weight) is the pet? What’s the name of the pet? You’d be surprised how often the pet “gets out” and how helpful it can be to know its name. Or if that dog is parking all night because your tenant is gone and you can yell out to the dog.
- What type of vehicles does the prospective tenant own or lease? A tenant screening background check will not always show automobiles. You should obtain the type of car, color, year, make and model. Always know whose vehicles are parked on your property. This includes autos for co-tenants/additional occupants.
- Ask the hard questions! Ask the tenant on your rental application form if they have ever been evicted from an apartment or home. Sure many will lie and you’ll discover an eviction on their tenant screening eviction background check, but others may fear the question and not even apply — saving you time, money, and aggravation.
- Important: You must have a signed release from the tenant authorizing you to obtain and investigate information on them such as a tenant screening credit report, criminal background check, eviction records, etc. The law requires this release, so don’t forget it!
- Always have the tenant print their name and provide a signature and date. If the application is more than 1 page, its not a bad idea to have them initial or sign the bottom of each page in the corner.
My apartment association provides rental applications for free. You can also find landlord forms like the application to rent from some tenant screening companies. Visit my listings to locate an apartment association by state or visit the American Apartment Owners Association, a nationwide landlord association providing larger discounts than local chapters, for the necessary landlord forms.
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