Understanding Criminal and Eviction Reports

Understanding a Criminal Background Check or Eviction Report

Have you ever run a criminal background check or eviction search only to not find anything? If you're like me, you feel better knowing you've gotten the "inside scoop" on a tenant to justify acceptance or a rejection! It can sometimes be a relief like dodging a bullet.

What if your search results don't return any criminal or eviction information? Well, that doesn't automatically mean the applicant is good, but at least your search on them was clean. The best result you can get on a criminal or eviction report is "NO RECORD FOUND" or "NO RESULTS", but sometimes you do get results. That is when you need to verify whether or not the "results" are actually a true match for your applicant or not.

When it comes to eviction or criminal reports, they are not an exact science because they are not always associated with a social security number the way credit reports are. For that reason, report results sometimes turn up other people with the same or similar names.
It is important to verify the locations, date of birth of the subject (if applicable), etc. Always verify the applicant’s ID as well.

With criminal reports, our criminal database searches are set to find up to 3 variations or aliases of the name searched

(Tom, Tommy, Thomas)
along with slight spelling variations of names. Sometimes these searches turn up other people with similar names or with middle names. That doesn't always mean it is a match with the subject person you are searching.

Important items to match to your applicant are the Date of Birth, Middle Name, and the Address or location of any offenses. The arrest reports do not usually include a social security number, so it is important to verify . It is always best when your applicant does NOT match any of the listed offenders. If you are searching someone with a fairly common name, your search will likely return many hits.
Good luck!

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