Need to
Know!

January 2012 Blog Posts

Tenant Screening - Understanding ITIN's

Questions often arise regarding use of ITIN's for tenant screening background checks. According to Internal Revenue Service Publication 1915, "An ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) is a tax processing number, issued by the internal Revenue Service, for certain resident and nonresident aliens, their spouses, and their dependents.  It is a nine-digit number beginning with the number “9”,  has a range of numbers from “70” to “88” for the fourth and fifth digits and is formatted like an SSN (i.e. 9XX-7X-XXXX)."  ITIN's are only available to individuals who are required to have a taxpayer identification number for tax purposes but who do not...

Tenant Screening – Importance of Rental References

Verifying rental history is an essential part of the tenant screening process.  Rental verifications compliment credit and public records searches or background checks, by: Detecting eviction activity that may not yet have found its way into public records data or onto the credit report (as a civil judgment).  Revealing violations of landlord rules and regulations that may not have risen to the level of an eviction but are nevertheless important to you. Providing you with a more complete view of the kind of resident the applicant has been and is likely to be. Logically, recent problems are most likely to go undetected...