In California alone, one in four people has a criminal record. While many have records for minor cases, others have committed more severe crimes.
As a Sacramento, California, landlord, you must know who among your renter applicants has such a history. You can do this through a tenant criminal background check.
But why exactly is a criminal background check crucial, and how can it help with safety and security?
Here's why and how.
Minimize Safety and Security Risks
A criminal background check delves into an individual's potential criminal history. It can tell you if someone has committed a crime at an international, federal, state, or county level.
You can obtain the following details through comprehensive tenant screening platforms:
- If an individual has a crime conviction
- If the conviction is for a minor or severe crime
- The date of the conviction
- If an individual is on the National Sex Offender database
- If someone is on the International Terrorism Database
Those details can help you gauge whether potential tenants pose safety and security risks to your other renters, property, and the community. For instance, you can avoid renting to someone with recent or multiple convictions for violent or property crimes like arson.
Avoid Legal Liabilities
As a landlord, you are legally responsible for providing tenants with a safe and habitable living environment. That includes providing security measures to help minimize the risk of crime on your property.
So, you can be legally responsible if one of your other tenants commits a crime against other tenants.
That's all the more reason to screen new tenants for potential criminal history. By doing so, you can gauge their likelihood of committing crimes against others and your property.
Find Reliable Tenants
A tenant criminal background check allows you to separate bad tenants from those with a clean history.
A clean record gives you more peace of mind since it indicates a person hasn't done anything to break the law. It's even more reassuring if your renters have clean rental and eviction histories, good credit standing, and verifiable income sources. These are the ideal tenants; they're the ones you'd want to rent out and offer lease renewals to.
By contrast, committing a previous crime can signal one's likelihood of reoffending.
Indeed, recidivism rates in the U.S. are among the highest worldwide. As for California, the average rate has been 50% within the last decade. Recidivism is a convicted criminal's tendency to reoffend after serving their sentence.
Never Skip a Tenant Criminal Background Check
A tenant criminal background check gives you a clearer insight into how trustworthy your potential tenants are. It lets you gauge how likely they are to endanger other people and your property.
Those should be good enough reasons never to skip this background check.
Our full-service property management company, PMI American River, can help you thoroughly screen tenants. We're part of PMI, a larger property management company with over 20 years of experience and over $5 billion of assets under its management. As your property manager, we'll assist you in marketing, rent collection, property maintenance, evictions, and more.
So, contact us today for a consultation! We'll happily give you a free rental analysis and discuss what we can do for your Sacramento properties.
