How to Verify Tenant Rental History

As you move through your screening process, you’ll check every applicant’s credit, verify their income, and potentially take a look at their criminal background history and their record of employment. 

Another part of any good screening process is examining rental history. This requires checking for evictions and talking to current and former landlords. 

If you’re not sure how to verify tenant rental history, we have some helpful tips for you based on our own screening process.

Collect Landlord Information on Rental Application

Verifying a tenant’s rental history starts with a thorough application. 

You’ll want to require every adult 18 years of age and older to complete an application. Collect all the basic information about where they work and what they earn. Ask for a current address and former addresses to cover at least the last 10 years. 

Ask for contact information for landlords, property managers, or apartment managers, depending on where they’ve lived previously. Ask for the dates that they lived in each home and how much rent they paid. 

You’ll need a signature from the applicant, granting you permission to conduct a background check and contact references. 

Check for Past Evictions

Before you can adequately and consistently screen tenants, you’ll need to establish standard rental criteria. This is the criteria you’ll use to evaluate the applications you receive. Tenants who meet your criteria are approved and those who fall short will be declined. 

Many rental property owners will not approve a tenant who has a past eviction. This is understandable. Check the local and national eviction databases. You can find out if the tenant was evicted anywhere in the U.S. 

Sometimes, evictions do not mean the tenant isn’t a good risk. If the eviction was 15 years ago and the tenant has established a solid rental history with good references over the last 10 years, you might want to give that applicant a chance. A tenant who has been evicted three times in the last five years, however, is probably not a great risk for you or your rental property. 

Conduct Landlord Reference Checks 

A good tenant will have a positive rental history. They’ll have former landlords who remain willing to rent to those residents again. 

Call or email at least two former landlords. You can talk to current landlords as well. Make sure you’re talking to the actual property owner or the property manager. If a tenant had a bad experience with a landlord, they’ll want to avoid allowing you to talk to that person. They may give you the phone number of a friend or a family member. 

Once you’re in touch with the landlord reference, ask:

• Was rent paid on time?
• If rent was late, how quickly did the tenant catch up? Did notices need to be filed?
• Was the home left in good condition? Was the entire security deposit refunded?
• Were there any lease violations noticed?
• Did the tenant provide enough notice before leaving? 



You’ll want to know if the tenants were easy to work with, if they communicated well, and if they had pets.