The short version
- Verify in a fixed order so every applicant is compared on the same information.
- Pay stubs and employment letters are the most commonly falsified documents. A bank statement showing the deposits is harder to fake.
- Call the landlord before the current one. The current landlord may want the tenant gone.
- Get written consent before running credit, and record that you did.
- You cannot charge the applicant for the credit check.
01Verification is a different job from screening
Prescreening decides who is worth your evening. Verification decides whether what they told you is true. Most landlords do the first well and the second inconsistently, usually because by then they like the applicant and want the unit filled.
The way to protect yourself from your own optimism is a fixed sequence. Same checks, same order, every applicant, recorded as you go.
- 1
1. Identity
Government photo identification, matched to the name on the application. This takes thirty seconds and prevents the entire category of problems where the person on the lease is not the person in the unit.
- 2
2. Income, from the bank not the employer
Ask for the last two or three months of bank statements showing the pay deposits, not only a pay stub or a letter. Stubs and letters are trivially generated. A statement showing the same amount landing from the same payer every two weeks is a much stronger signal.
- 3
3. References, previous landlord first
Call the landlord before the current one. A current landlord who wants a difficult tenant out has an incentive to give a warm reference. The one before has none.
- 4
4. Credit, with written consent
Consent has to be recorded, and you cannot charge the applicant for the check. Look at payment behaviour and collections, not just the score.
- 5
5. Decision, written down
Note the reason on the file. If a decision is ever questioned, a contemporaneous note is worth far more than a recollection.
02What gets faked, and what to do about it
| Document | How it is faked | What to ask for instead |
|---|---|---|
| Pay stub | Generated from a template in minutes, with a real employer's name on it | Bank statements showing the deposits landing, or a direct deposit history |
| Employment letter | Written by the applicant, signed by a friend, on a letterhead pulled from a website | A call to the company's published main number, not the number on the letter |
| Landlord reference | A relative playing the part of the landlord | Cross-check ownership on the property, and ask questions only a real landlord could answer |
03Where this goes wrong
04Move at the speed of the market anyway
None of this is an argument for being slow. The best applicants have options and take them quickly, and a landlord who takes five days to verify loses to one who took a day.
The way to be both fast and thorough is to collect the documents at the same time you invite someone to a showing rather than after. By the time they have seen the unit you already have what you need to decide.
05One place from first message to signed lease
The reason verification gets skipped is friction. Documents arrive as photos in a chat, references live in your call history, and the application itself is in an email thread with fourteen replies.
TenantBay keeps the inquiry, the documents, the screening notes, the consent record and the decision on one record, and converts it straight into a tenant when you say yes. The lease is built from what you already collected, the deposit and rent schedule follow, and you never retype a name. That is the difference between a process you follow and one you mean to follow.
Questions landlords actually ask
Can I charge an applicant for a credit check in Ontario?
No. You may run a check with written consent, but billing the applicant for it is an additional charge the Residential Tenancies Act does not permit.
How much proof of income should I ask for?
Enough to see a pattern rather than a snapshot. Two to three months of bank statements showing the pay deposits is more informative, and much harder to fabricate, than a single pay stub.
Should I call the current landlord or the previous one?
Both, but weight the previous one more heavily. A current landlord who wants a tenant to leave has an incentive to be generous.
Do I have to give a reason for declining an applicant?
No. Keep the decision reason on your own file for consistency, but you are not obliged to explain it to the applicant, and short is usually better.
Sources
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