As some know, The Background Check Manual is free here on this website. It’s also available in worddoc or .pdf format via email if you’d rather have the entire e-book in one spot for reference purposes. The manual contains tons of information on identity verification, public records retrieval, etc. and includes links to state websites and sex offender registries. The manual is free. We only ask that you do not copy or share the document in any form. If you know anyone who’s interested, please send them here.

There’s a very important point to remember:

• The manual was not *written* for landlords.
• It can be *adapted* for landlords. Big Difference~

The manual was originally written for small business owners, nonprofit organizations such as churches and charity groups  and youth organizations like softball and soccer leagues. The primary purpose for these groups is to screen out undesirables, felons and abusers who target and prey upon the young, weak and elderly by seeking out positions of authority.

Think wolves amongst sheep.

Funny Thing Happened on the Way to The Rental Business…

As landlords, our goals are quite different. We want to rent to responsible adults who will respect our property and pay the rent. Period. Running every possible civil and/or criminal record costs too stinkin’ much and takes way too much time away from fun stuff like compulsively checking MLS and Craisglist.

• Remember, we’re granting permission for someone else to occupy our property.
• We’re not moving in together.

When the mister and I bought our first rental, the lessons learned from all those months running public records paid off bigtime. I was able to adapt the background check manual to suit our new situation. Now, when an application hits my desk, I can run a credit report, verify identity, check all personal and business references, and check criminal and sex offender databases in 20 minutes or less (unless I hit a wall of answering machines instead of real live people, in which case, calls get forwarded to the home phone and the mrs. can go back to baking brownies and refinishing furniture.)

The Part Where the Mrs. Stops Beating About the Bushes and Gets to the Point Already…

So here’s the deal.

• I chose to offer the background check manual as-is just in case someone, somewhere might want to start a background check program for their softball league or volunteer fire department. 
• The manul has tons of information totally unnecessary to the landlord doing a routine screening.
• This blog is geared toward real estate investment, not softball leagues.
• Therefore the vast majority of readers are landlords, not softball players 
• Therefore, therefore, the manual is confusing and unusable to the vast majority of the readers of this blog.
• (Heavy sigh…)

Therefore thrice, I’m going to do my best to clear up any confusion over the next few days. I’ll be referring back to the manual, so if you want a copy of the document in question, send an email with ‘Background Check Manual’ in the subject line. The manual has tons of information that explains the process of public record retrieval and identity verification and even makes social security numbers mildly interesting.

The manual is available on this site under the Tenant Screening tab at the top of the page.

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