A potential tenant's credit report is an important tool in determining how much risk you are taking in renting to them. Many property owners require a clean credit report for all of their tenants. If you own a property that you rent out, adding rental history to a tenant's credit report can be an incentive for them to rent from you or a deterrent from making late payments.
Instructions
- 1
Keep detailed records of your contracts and transactions with your tenant. This includes the rental lease, any lease addendums and payment receipts. You may be asked to provide proof of your business relationship and these materials can help you do that.
2Go directly to the source and report right to a credit bureau. You must pay a membership fee to do this, be able to report on at least a hundred credit accounts each year and be able to format the information for electronic reporting. Although this option allows you to put good and bad credit information on a tenant's credit report, it is meant for the property owner who has many properties or at least 100 rental properties.
3Use a credit reporting service if you only need to report a few accounts each year. A credit reporting service will take your information and report to the credit bureau for you. This option also allows you to add positive and negative information to the tenant's credit report, but does not require the membership that the credit bureau does. They also tend to charge a flat fee per credit account instead of a yearly membership fee.
4Report a delinquent credit account to the credit bureau using a collection agency. One benefit in using a collection agency is that it will also handle any collection attempts for the debt. The agency has its own membership with a credit bureau and reports to a tenant's credit report on your behalf. Just remember that this is only an option with delinquent accounts and the collection agency will charge you a percentage of debt collected. This can be expensive if you are owed a lot of rent.
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