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: 12% [?]

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

I hate background checks–totally, completely, thoroughly despise the whole process. It’s boring and inaccurate, mind numbing and irritating, icky and stupid. Just looking through all my old files is giving me hives.

So, in an effort to purge my harddrive of the spector of the old background check business, I’m planning to upload anything useful and move on to fun stuff like flooring, and toilets and bargain hunting.

(If I don’t lapse into a coma first )

Popularity: 8% [?]

Tags: , background checks, tenant screening

There’s a ton of confusion even among professionals about what constitutes a background check. Phrases like background check, background screening, and public record’s checks are used interchangeably, yet mean vastly different things.

Just for grins, here’s a list of common terms with distinctions noted.  

Glossary:

Background Screening: As the name implies, a method of ‘screening out’ undesirable applicants, usually during the early stages of the hiring process which varies widely among companies and other groups. This can be as simple as a few questions on an application asking for criminal history and job experience.  Those that pass the initial screening, are usually moved along into the background check phase.

Background Check: A simpler animal with a two prong approach: Verifying identity and checking public records. More sensitive documents such as credit reports may or may not be included depending on job or volunteer responsibilities.

Background Investigation: A long and involved, complicated process of acquiring as much information as possible about another person. These are generally performed by private investigators contracted by major businesses but also by police departments, the FBI and other government agencies when hiring employees. Neighbors are interviewed, financial records are poured over, and privacy is generally invaded at every angle. Folks applying for these positions involving major corporate or government responsibility generally understand the nature of the beast beforehand. Politicians are generally investigated in this way and dread it like black plague. Be aware that many people claim to perform background investigations when they’re really doing something less invasive.

Biometrics: Biometrics is the emerging field of technology devoted to identification using biological traits such as retinal or iris scanning, fingerprints, or face recognition.

Primary sources of identification: Characteristics of an individual that are unique and cannot be changed such as DNA, fingerprints, and retinal patterns.

Secondary sources of identification: Documents and data linked to an individual that can be changed or manipulated such as social security numbers, birth certificates, and driver’s license numbers.

Public Records: Transcripts, documents, etc. filed by a government agency and available to the public.

For Landlords Only

Without going into too much detail, technically landlords first screen then check. Screening starts the minute the phone rings and progresses through the written application phase. Sometimes people screen themselves out. I’ve had people say, “I’m being evicted Monday–can I move in this weekend?”

Uh…that would be no. 

Those that clear the screening enter phase 2–the background check. During the background check you need to know:

• Is the applicant who he says he is?
• Is he telling the truth?
• Has he done something that disqualifies him from renting your house or apartment, whether civil (filing multiple bogus lawsuits) or criminal (knocking off his former landlord)?

An excellent resource for tenant screening is the forum over on www.mrlandlord.com. Some of those folks are a bit blunt, but they represent many collective years of experience. Try searching the archives first, then grow a thick skin and ask away

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: background check, background checks, tenant screening

Sections 1-12 are now up.

Click the Tenant Screening tab at the top of the page… more to follow soon

For clarity, a few quick reminders:

This was written back when I ran background checks for fun and profit. My audience at the time were my clientele–small business owners and  nonprofit organizations such as softball leagues, soccer teams, churches, and volunteer fire departments.

Some of this material does *not* apply so much to tenant screening, but I’ve included it anyway on the off-chance that someone other than landlords might wander over and take a peek.

A few of these sections look rather simple… that’s because it *is* simple. Public records are just that— public. It’s knowing which records to check, where to look and what to look out for that’s tricky. Once you have the contact information for your state and county, you can whip these out in no time. There’s a learning curve, but its not that stinkin’ steep.

Tenant Screening/Background checking is something I do not outsource–ever.

Here’s why:

Let’s say someone named Joe Smith applies to rent your lovely little duplex. You go online, pay your $25 for a nationwide criminal records check and it comes back negative. You heave a sigh of relief and sign up your felon.

Do you have any idea which database your online service checked? How often the database is updated? Did someone type in Joe Smith, and scan the thousands of positives? Did they look for aliases? Verify by birthdate? Etc?

We are not the police. We are not the government. We do not have access to the same background and criminal record info plastered all over CSI. Huge databases are notoriously inaccurate– your chances of finding criminal history are much, much higher when you access what *is* available yourself.

A bunch of the material below is explanatory in nature. The forms actually walk you through the process. I haven’t figured out how to post the forms in a readily accessible format. Hopefully, that will happen very soon. If anyone has any ideas, please shoot me an email cmbrz@conniebrz.com or post a comment and I’ll get back to you.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Tags: , background, background check, background checks, nonprofit, nonprofit organizations, screening, small business, tenant, tenant screening, tenants

The first attempt at uploading the background check manual was declared an utter and abject failure as of 12:16 am CST accompanied by the sound of much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

 Therefore, one of my personalities made a motion that the whole thing be uploaded to the blog via copy/paste. The motion carried as everyone else went to bed where they belonged.  

This will take time. WP will probably balk and mess up all my formatting.

Heavy sigh…

Popularity: 11% [?]

Tags: background, background checks, checks, screening, 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: 8% [?]

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