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.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Tags: background check manual, background checks, landlord, tenant, tenant screening

Free Background Check Manual

Several years ago, I started a background check company, proclaimed myself king and anointed Mr. Brz vice-king. We had a lovely website, lots of lovely traffic, tons of people calling and went broke in record time. Something about giving all the goods away without compensation of a monetary sort probably contributed.

Couldn’t help it though… most calls were from nonprofit groups with zero budget and pitiful sob stories. I gave away background checks right and left and wrote them off with great abandon… until the vice-king informed her highness that the coffers were empty and the website was coming down.

In a final effort to salvage the business, I wrote a background check manual complete with forms, links to state and local internet resources, articles with step by step instructions and all sorts of goodies and offered it for sale as a download. I tried like everything to talk the freeloaders into buying the manual and running their own background checks. Didn’t happen. So down came the website and all the files went in a box somewhere.

The Part Where We Become Landlords

Our adventure with real estate began shortly thereafter and I found that all the information I’d toiled over was imminently practical in the real world of tenant screening. By running our own background checks, we save a bunch and I can customize each screening based on the information found on the credit report and during preliminary calls to ex-landlords and personal references.

Yesterday, while over visiting Rents “R” Us,  a recent post on tenant screening brought to mind that  box of cd’s and files. Considering the sad state of our storage room, honestly there didn’t seem to be much hope, but apparently miracles do happen. So, over the next few days, I’m planning to weed through the files and post anything that might be relevant to tenant screening, including the background check manual.

It may take a bit as I’ve got to find the best way to organize 50+ pages of manual, plus forms and whatnot.

Check back soon if you’re interested.

Quick Update: The background check manual is ready. Click the “Tenant Screening” tab at the top of this page for updates :-)

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: background, background check manual, background checks, screening, tenant screening, tenants