VETTING A TENANT – A QUICK GUIDE

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Most tenant issues faced by landlords, such as non-payment and needing to evict the tenant, can be mitigated by properly and thoroughly vetting the tenant before any lease agreement is signed. In fact, vetting the tenant substantially reduces the possibility of needing legal intervention and hence keeps costs low for the landlord.

BENEFITS OF VETTING A TENANT

There are various benefits of vetting a tenant, some more obvious than others. Typically, the benefits include:

  1. Knowing who the tenant is. Obtaining copies of ID, passports, visas, etc, helps to identify who the person is you are leasing the property to and also helps reduce the possibility of you being tricked by a tenant using the identity of another person.
  2. Knowing the tenant’s means. Obtaining bank statements is often very insightful and allows you to see if the tenant can afford to rent the property while paying the usual monthly expenses. Additionally, the bank statements should be able to tell you if the tenant was actually paying the previous landlord. Further, you will gain insight into potentially troublesome habits of the tenant, such as: very frequent purchases of alcohol; exhausting all money long before the end of the month; relying on credit to make it through the month, etc.
  3. Knowing who the employer of the tenant is. Obtaining payslips helps prove that the tenant is employed and earning enough to afford rent, and usually discloses deductions as a result of court orders. If the tenant falls in arrears, you should be able to have an emolument attachment order granted, allowing you to take part of the salary of the tenant each month – if you did not know who the tenant’s employer was, you would have difficulty in obtaining an emolument attachment order.
  4. Knowing the tenant’s past conduct with landlords. Obtaining references from previous landlords can help you determine if the tenant complied with the tenant’s obligations (such as payment of rent). Additionally, you should be able to determine if the tenant was ever evicted from a property.
  5. Filtering out potentially undesirable tenants. Typically, there will be some tenants that do not provide all the requested information and documentation and this is by design. Some of these tenants might: be unemployed and do not have income that can be used to pay the rent; have used the identity of somebody else to try and obtain housing through fraudulent means; have been evicted by their previous landlord; have been sued for failing to pay money that is owed to someone; have caused damage to the previous rental property before leaving the rental property; etc.

RECOMMENDED TENANT VETTING

We recommend that all tenants be vetted, and in particular, we recommend that all landlords obtain the following at a minimum:

  1. Certified copy of the identity document of the tenant.
  2. Bank statements for the past three months.
  3. Payslips for the past three months.
  4. References from the current landlord and the previous landlord.
  5. Consent by the tenant to let you draw credit reports in respect of the tenant.

With the above information, you should be able to draw a TPN report (https://app.tpn.co.za/Subscribe/Pricing) in respect of the tenant, which will provide you with more information regarding the tenant and the tenant’s history.

We do recommend that more advanced vetting be performed to try and further mitigate potential issues. In fact, you can use one of our partners, Preferental by following this link: https://screenings.preferental.com/secure/register/landlord/?ref=68397f6672c62f306a1eed7e_65fd2cea.

Disclaimer: The above should not be accepted as legal advice, and you are encouraged to seek legal advice.

Prepared by Bruce Barkhuizen, Attorney and Notary.