The importance of the pre-rental screening
Choosing the right tenant is a procedure that owners of income properties should not take lightly. Before entrusting a unit to a candidate, it’s important to go through a pre-rental screening. This procedure enables us to verify a few details about the tenant, thereby minimizing financial risk.
Make an informed decision
Are you used to trusting your intuition when choosing tenants? Beware: it could play tricks on you!
It’s vital to validate a prospective tenant’s profile. Delinquency, non-payment and vandalism are all too common topics of discussion among rental property owners. This just goes to show how important it is to select your tenants with care. Conducting a pre-rental screening also means buying peace of mind!
Save time
Don’t let your perceptions fool you! By including a pre-rental screening in your rental process, you’ll be using objective criteria to select the right candidates. In fact, even if it’s not infallible, a credit report, for example, is a good way of finding out whether the applicant will be able to pay the monthly instalment.
We also recommend that you state directly in the ad that a credit check is required to obtain the property. This way, you’ll save time by attracting serious applicants who, in most cases, have no problem submitting to a pre-screening inquiry.
Avoid time-consuming and costly recourse
Although there are a number of recourses available in the event of problems with your tenants, notably with the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL), the pre-rental screening reduces the risk of financial losses associated with registering a file with such a body.
Did you know that once an application has been submitted to the TAL, it takes a minimum of 6 weeks to obtain a hearing? In addition, the judge has a maximum of 3 months to render a decision. Then, once the judgment has been rendered, tenants must be given a maximum of 30 days following the signing of the judgment to vacate the dwelling. It’s easy to see how the months can add up while you’re still dealing with a problem tenant.
For what reasons are you entitled to refuse an applicant?
There are three valid reasons for rejecting a prospective tenant. You may reject a tenant’s application on the following grounds:
- Financial reasons, including insolvency (poor credit record), inability to pay rent (based on insufficient employment income) or poor payment habits.
- Unwanted behavior, i.e. a record relevant to the TAL, a criminal record or poor rental references.
- A candidate’s refusal to undergo a pre-rental screening.
How do I conduct a pre-rental screening?
Proprio Expert is proud to trust ProprioEnquête‘s pre-rental screening service to help its users make informed choices about their tenants.
ProprioEnquête’s service is available entirely online, 24 hours a day. Owners and managers can obtain the results of their pre-rental screening at any time, within a maximum of 72 working hours (if you choose the most extensive survey). Moreover, the screening reports provided by the platform stand out from the models commonly offered. More complete, clear and precise, the accuracy of the research process is one of the main assets of these screenings!
