IDHonesty

www.idhonesty.com

This site is a rather interesting concept. Instead of having other people pay to verify you identity and lack of criminal record each time, basically this allows each individual to pay for a membership profile which gives any user access to check your posted criminal record and identity for free. Sort of a backwards version of a background check and would most likely end up much cheaper.

Credit Check

Everyone knows they have a credit score, though not all us know what it is. But did you realize that there are actually 3 scores and a FICO?

Well you see there are 3 credit bureaus and not all issues are reported to all three. Some times this can result in quite a bit of difference in the three scores. So if you checked your credit score lately because you feared it was going to take and dive and didn't see a change don't celebrate yet, unless you checked all three scores.

With that being said, the three credit bureaus are the only legit source for your credit score. So look for credit checks that get the number from one of them, or go directly to the bureaus them self.


Sites that use both



www.tenantverification.com
www.atenatscreen.com
http://www.bizfraud.com/

Online offenses. Another tenant landlord article

Landlord shames tenants by posting offenses online

Posted 04/06/2012 by Janet Portman

Q: Our landlord has begun posting the names of tenants who violate the "house rules" on the property's website. For example, people who park illegally or get talked to by management for excessive noise get listed (so do those who pay rent late). He claims it's a way to encourage compliance and it will make the property a safer and cleaner place to live. I think it's an invasion of privacy. Is it legal? --Betsy B.

A: Perhaps your landlord has recently revisited a classic from his childhood, "The Scarlet Letter," and wants to see if websites are as effective as letters sewn onto a dress. Or maybe he's heard about California's new law, which took effect in January 2012, that makes employers who willfully misclassify workers as independent contractors (when they should be classified as employees) put a statement on their company website or in the workplace, for a year, saying that they violated the law (see California Labor Code Sections 226.8 and 2753).

Commentators haven't hesitated to call this "public shaming," and it's not new; in Tennessee, drunken-driving offenders must pick up trash on the side of the road while wearing a jumpsuit that says, "I am a drunk driver" (see Tennessee Code Section 55-10-403).

It's one thing for the legislature to specifically permit or require public shaming for convicted defendants, but can a private businessperson adopt a public shaming strategy of its own, without worrying about breaking a criminal law or civil liability? That depends on how your state would approach the question.

Let's start with whether the landlord has committed a crime. A person whose name ends up on a website or lobby bulletin board might go to the police or prosecutor and complain of harassment. All states have anti-harassment statutes, which make it a crime to act in a way designed to annoy, provoke, threaten or otherwise cause another person emotional distress.

To be guilty of harassment, the offender must specifically intend the results of his actions (the distress). But when you apply this definition to what you've described, you can see that the required intent isn't present: Your landlord is posting the information to deter similar misconduct, not to cause the "victim" distress.

What about a civil action? A claim for defamation comes to mind, but here, too, there's a major problem. Defamation requires the publication of a statement that hurts the subject's reputation -- but the statement must be false. As long as the statements are true, there's generally no liability.

Suing for the "intentional infliction of emotional distress" is another possible claim, but again there's a problem: The landlord arguably intended only to teach other tenants a lesson, not to pour salt on the wounds of the transgressors.

That leaves us with negligently inflicting emotional distress, but this usually involves distress that follows someone's careless act, such as the pain suffered by a parent who watches a child be injured during a car accident. That's a far cry from embarrassment resulting from a printed statement that you were late paying your rent.

So the unfortunate subjects of your landlord's list may not have legal recourse. But one can't help but wonder about the practical wisdom of the landlord's practice. From a marketing angle, it can't be helping him.

Prospective tenants who visit the website may decide to look elsewhere, for fear that their accidental mistakes may set them up for public shaming.

Q: My tenants want to install shelving in the garage and track lighting in the kitchen. What's the best way to handle this? --Brandon T.

A: Your tenants' proposals amount to a request that they "alter" the rental property by adding to it. All too often, tenants think that at the end of the tenancy, they can take away what they've installed; and landlords either think they can keep the additions or charge the tenants for the cost of returning the property to its original state.

Arguments ensue, deductions from the security deposit follow, and sometimes small claims court is the end result.

With a little forethought, however, you can avoid this confusion. First, understand that an alteration that is attached to or becomes part of the structure legally belongs to the landlord, unless there's a different agreement. Your tenants' proposals qualify; hooking up a portable dishwasher would not, nor would shelving that is kept in place by isometric pressure.

Next, decide whether these additions are likely to enhance your property and make it possible to either set a higher rent next time, or give the rental a marketing edge. If so, and if you trust your tenants to do the job right (a big "if"), you may want to keep these additions when the tenants move out.

But to be fair, you'll need to pay for at least some of the materials and some of the labor, too. How much? That's up for negotiation -- you may feel that something less than full price is fair, because it's the tenants' wish, not yours, to add these things now. The more valuable the additions and the more they add to your property's marketability, the more you ought to pay for them.

more articles like this one at http://www.tenantverification.com

Restraining order my break lease article

Restraining order may provide lease-break rights

Posted 03/01/2012 by Janet Portman

Q: I've been asked by one of my tenants for permission to break her lease. She has a restraining order against her estranged husband, and wants to move away. I told her I'd hold her to the same standard I apply to anyone who breaks a lease -- she'll be responsible for the rent until I can re-rent, and I expect her to pay the back rent that has piled up (two months' worth).

I feel badly for this lady, but I can't afford to lose the rent, either. --Mark S.

A: I'm not sure which question you're asking -- whether it's morally OK for you to proceed as you plan, or whether it's legally permissible. I'll leave the first one to you and your spiritual advisers; me, I'm only about the law.

And the law might, depending on where you live, have something to say about treating this person the way you'd treat any lease-breaking tenant who has no legally justified basis for leaving the rental.

Justifiable reasons include a landlord's failure to offer and maintain fit and habitable premises, but they also include, increasingly, the tenant's need to leave because of fear of continued domestic violence.

When the tenant leaves because of a legally recognized event or reason, the tenant's responsibility for future rent due under the lease is extinguished (though unpaid back rent will still be due).

States began recognizing a domestic violence victim's need to leave as a valid reason for breaking a lease after Congress passed the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 (VAWA).

That federal law applied only to people renting with public assistance, in public housing or private housing (Section 8). It relaxed the rules concerning when a recipient could move without jeopardizing their right to continued assistance.

States soon followed with laws that applied to private landlords renting not just to assisted individuals, but to regular tenants as well.

Today, slightly less than half of the states extend some form of protection to victims, typically allowing them to break a lease and move without responsibility for future rent when they have documented the abuse and have notified the landlord in a timely manner.

One such state, Texas, goes one step further: Landlords are allowed to collect unpaid back rent, as you intend to do, only if their lease contains a statement like (or substantially like) this: "Tenants may have special statutory rights to terminate the lease early in certain situations involving family violence or a military deployment or transfer." (Tex. Prop. Code Ann. 92.016.)

In other words, unless Texas landlords educate their tenants of their rights to terminate, whether as domestic violence victims or because they've received deployment or transfer orders, they will lose their right to any back rent that exists when the tenant leaves.

That's pretty strong stuff -- the reader is left wondering whether the Legislature enacted this proviso in response to Texas landlords' practice of denying tenants their rights to terminate in these situations.

Q: I'm about to move into a rental situation in which I'll be the third roommate, replacing someone who's leaving. The departing tenant wants me to buy him out of his deposit. But what if the landlord charges us later for damage that happened before I moved in? How can I protect myself from this? --Jason S.

A: This scenario is very common and doesn't, unfortunately, have a simple solution. To handle this fairly, you'll need the good-faith cooperation of all roommates, and ideally, your landlord's cooperation too. Here are some avenues to try.

1. Ask for an inspection now. Although it's a long shot, you might consider asking the landlord to conduct an inspection now, when the person you're replacing moves out.

Like an end-of-tenancy inspection, this one would look for damage beyond ordinary wear and tear. A landlord who agrees to a midtenancy inspection might be able to spot problems that he'd deduct for, if the entire tenancy were ending right then.

For example, suppose the rug has been damaged by stains and misuse -- ideally, the owner would tell you that he'd charge a certain amount for its cleaning or replacement.

The original roommates should cover this expense, which should come out of their shares, and you could buy the departing tenant's deposit for the original sum less his portion of the ruined rug deduction.

Landlords also inspect for cleanliness at the end of the term. At this point, however, there's no reason to polish up the rental, because the entire group isn't moving. If you stay to the end, you'll have to do your part to clean the unit, which the departing tenant has happily avoided. You might ask that tenant to compensate you for part of the time you'll spend on this end-of-lease chore.

But as mentioned at the outset, it's not likely that your landlord will go along with this request. First of all, in an occupied rental, furniture and personal items may cover or mask damage that the landlord just won't see.

If he sees it at the end, he won't want an argument as to why he didn't note it earlier. And in a broader sense, the landlord really has nothing to gain from this added bit of work: He's entitled to keep the entire deposit until the whole tenancy ends, and how the co-tenants allocate it among them is not his problem.

The last thing the landlord wants is to get in the middle of a spat among roommates as to who caused the damage, and when it happened.

2. Do your own inspection. While you can't force your landlord to conduct an early inspection, there's no reason why all of you can't do one yourselves.

Take a good hard look at the rental and ask yourselves, if we were the owner, knowing how he or she does business and how this place looked when we moved in, what would we deduct for today?

How much would it cost to replace that ruined rug, or clean it? What about the multiple picture hangers in every room -- will these result in a claim that the entire place has to be painted?

When you come up with an estimate for repairs or replacement, divide that cost by the number of roommates, subtract the result from each roommate's share, and offer to buy the departing tenant's deposit share minus that sum.

Of course, you can't be sure that your estimates will be the same as those used by the landlord. Here is where ongoing communication and good faith among all tenants are required.

Suppose the landlord insists on replacing the rug rather than cleaning, which makes your original deduction for cleaning too small. Ideally, you'd contact the departed tenant and be reimbursed for your share of the difference between the actual deduction and your initial estimate.

http://www.tenantverification.com

Interesting tenant repair duties article

Beware of tenant repair duties in lease

Posted 05/04/2012 by Janet Portman

Q: The lease for our single-family house specifies that we will do "routine maintenance." The landlord claims that this includes fixing the roof and doing exterior painting. We had no idea that he saw it this way; we were thinking drain repair and so on. When we refused to re-roof the garage, he told us he'd sue us for the water damage that will result from a leaky roof. Can he? --Mark and Linda

A: Your question illustrates the dangers of handing over maintenance duties to tenants without a clear understanding of what those duties involve. Fortunately, the problem is relatively rare, because most states do not allow landlords to contract away their duty to maintain a fit and habitable rental. Of those that do, the statutes limit the practice to single-family homes, and typically require that the duties be spelled out in writing and that the arrangement be a fair bargain (in other words, the tenant must be paid for the labor or get a good deal on rent).

The landlord must treat the arrangement separately from his other duties as a landlord. This means, for example, that if the landlord is unhappy about the job the tenant is doing, he cannot retaliate by shutting off the water.

Even in states that allow landlords to delegate legally required upkeep, few do so. Most owners are not willing to entrust the integrity of their property to tenants who may not know much about property maintenance, and have less incentive to do things right than if they owned the property themselves.

Let's assume for now that your state allows the landlord to pass along the obligation to maintain the property, and you decline to re-roof the garage. If your landlord sues you for the resulting water damage, the burden will be on him to convince the judge or jury that you broke the maintenance agreement. And he could have a hard time doing so: The agreement, which the landlord wrote, is so vague as to be meaningless. A judge may well conclude that the landlord had a chance to write it correctly, failed to do so, and cannot now complain about the consequences.

Your landlord will be similarly out of luck if he tries to get his insurance company to cover the damage. Property damage policies cover damage that results from a sudden event, such as water that pours in after a tree has fallen on the roof. Deferred maintenance that causes water damage over time won't be covered.

Before it comes to that, get together with your landlord and revisit the delegation issue. Although the lease was signed some time ago, there's no reason why the two of you can't amend it now and fix it. Make sure that if you want to take on minor repairs only, their precise nature and extent is described thoroughly in the lease, and that you are fairly compensated for your efforts.

Q: I've always told my tenants that their rent check must be postmarked by the first of the month (rent is due the first). I've just hired a property manager, who says I should instead require receipt of the rent on the first. What do you think? --Peter A.

A: I'm with your property manager. "Due on the first of the month" means in your hand, or in your bank account if there's an electronic transfer of funds. If tenants are mailing a check, it's up to them to mail it in time to be received by the first.

Here's the practical problem with your approach: Not only will you receive the rent a number of days after it's due, but you also will have given your tenants an unintended grace period when it comes to failure to pay the rent.

Suppose, for example, that a tenant insists that she mailed the check on the first, and that date happens to have fallen on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. Because Monday is a federal holiday, the earliest the check will arrive is the following Tuesday, a full three days after the first. In fact, if she missed the last pick-up on Saturday, it will not have been processed until Tuesday ... and you can't expect to get it until Wednesday or even Thursday. So you wait until Thursday or even Friday, and don't give her a three-day notice to pay or quit until Friday or Saturday. She's managed to not pay rent for an entire week, and has another three days to come up with the rent -- 10 days after it was due.

But suppose she moves out instead? You have to take those 10 days' worth of rent from her security deposit. That leaves the balance to cover damage beyond ordinary wear and tear. If the cost to repair damage exceeds the balance of the deposit, you'll have to either sue for the remainder or swallow the loss.

Had you insisted on actually receiving rent on the first, you could have served your notice on the second, and the tenant would have had to pay by the end of the day on the fourth. If she moved out instead, you'd take only four days' worth of rent from the deposit, leaving more to cover damage.

Of course, the delay caused by your approach will delay any eviction proceedings too, which you'll need to begin if the tenant neither pays nor moves out. It's far better to file an eviction lawsuit early on, when the unpaid rent is lower, because that rent will also come out of the security deposit, leaving less to cover damage.

I hope all of this convinces you to write your future leases to require that you receive the rent by the first of the month. Putting the risk of mail delays on the tenant is the only sensible way to go.

more at http://tenantverification.com 

Found another interesting background checker site. Its called http://www.bizfraud.com. Its the sister of http://www.tenantverification.com. Unlike TVS which is for landlords, Bizfraud is for business owners looking for employees and companies that are safe. The site is dedicated to Business and Credit fraud and is rather informative.

favorite saying

Duck tape is like the force, there is a dark side, a light side and it holds to world together.

Both also have a group of fanatics that swear by it, the only difference is the group that believe in the force wear robes and the group that swears by the duct tape wears overalls.




Best Tenant Screening sites out there.
www.atenantscreen.com
www.tenantverification.com