Questions to ask a tenant's previous landlord

Open with a question the person on the other end has to look something up to answer. “What was the monthly rent, and what was the security deposit?” A landlord knows both without thinking. A friend doing a favor hesitates, guesses, or gets one of them wrong.

Ask that first, every time, before anything else. It costs ten seconds and it is the only part of the call that verifies you are talking to who you think you are talking to.

The rest of the script below is in order for a reason, and the order matters more than the wording.

Verify the person before you trust the answers

The number in the reference box on an application is whatever the applicant typed. Sometimes it is the property manager. Sometimes it is a cousin who has agreed to say nice things.

Three cheap checks, in ascending effort:

1. The rent and deposit question above.
2. Look up the property’s owner of record in the county assessor’s database and see whether the name matches. It takes about a minute in most counties and it is public.
3. Call the main number for the management company from its own website rather than the number on the application.

Do not skip straight to the third one for every applicant. Do use it whenever the first answer came back shaky.

The twelve questions, in order

Ask all of them, of every reference, in this sequence. A fixed script is what makes the answers comparable, and comparability is the whole point of calling more than one landlord.

1. What was the monthly rent, and what was the deposit?
2. What were the move-in and move-out dates?
3. How many times did rent arrive after the grace period in the last twelve months?
4. Was any rent ever unpaid at move-out?
5. Did you ever serve a notice to pay or quit, or file anything in court?
6. How many people lived in the unit, and were they all on the lease?
7. Were there pets, and were they on the lease?
8. How did the unit look at move-out compared to move-in?
9. Was any part of the deposit withheld, and for what?
10. Did you receive proper written notice before the tenant moved out?
11. Were there complaints from neighbors, and were they resolved?
12. Would you rent to this person again?

Question twelve is the famous one and the least useful. It invites a yes-or-no summary judgment, and by that point you already have the facts that produced it. Its real value is when the answer contradicts the eleven answers before it.

Question three is the one that earns the call. It is a count, not an impression, and it maps directly onto a written criterion. Questions eight and nine are worth asking in that order, because a landlord who withheld a deposit will usually explain why, and the answer tells you whether they were charging for damage or for ordinary wear and tear. Question ten is the sleeper: a tenant who leaves without proper notice is the same tenant who will do it to you, and it rarely comes up unless asked.

Why the previous landlord beats the current one

The current landlord may want this tenant gone. A landlord sitting on unpaid rent, or on a tenant who is difficult but not evictable, has an incentive to give a warm reference and let the problem become yours.

The previous landlord has no such incentive. The tenancy is over, the deposit is settled, and there is nothing left to gain from shading the answer either way.

So call both, and weight the older one. If they disagree, that gap is information. If the applicant will not provide a previous landlord at all, ask why, write down the answer, and treat the missing reference as a missing verification against your written criteria rather than as a character judgment. How to set criteria that can carry that weight covers the wording.

Two questions you are not allowed to ask

Reference calls feel informal, and informal is where fair housing problems start.

Anything that reveals a protected characteristic. Not the applicant’s national origin, family makeup, religion, disability, or the reason for an assistance animal. The Fair Housing Act prohibits refusing to rent because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin (42 U.S.C. § 3604(a)) and treats a refusal to make reasonable accommodations for a disability as discrimination in its own right (§ 3604(f)). Many states protect more: California’s list runs to sixteen characteristics and includes source of income (Cal. Gov. Code § 12955(a), (p)).

A reference will sometimes volunteer this information anyway. Do not write it down, do not repeat it, and steer back to the script.

Anything you would not ask about every applicant. The moment the questions vary by person, the file stops showing a consistent process. That is true even when the extra question feels innocent.

Write the answers down while you are on the phone

Not afterward. Use the same twelve-line form for every call, note the date, the number you dialed, and who answered.

There is a legal reason beyond tidiness. Your own reference call is not a consumer report: a consumer report under 15 U.S.C. § 1681a(d)(1) is information from a consumer reporting agency. Information you gathered yourself carries no dispute rights for the applicant and no adverse action notice obligation from the reporting side, which sounds like less work and is actually less protection. Nobody checked it for accuracy but you. Your notes are the whole record of what was said.

If a denial ends up resting partly on a reference call and partly on a report, the report still triggers the notice. Adverse action notices covers where that line falls.

When you cannot reach anybody

Some applicants genuinely have no rental history. First-time renters, people coming out of homeownership, people relocating from abroad.

Decide in advance what substitutes, and write it into the criteria so it applies to everyone: a longer income verification, a co-signer, an additional deposit where your state allows one. What you must not do is invent the substitute on the spot for one applicant, because a rule created for a single person is a rule that can only be explained by that person.

The calls themselves take about five minutes each once the script is fixed. Keep the notes on the application record rather than in a notebook, so the file holds the whole picture: screening in LeaseRooster keeps the verifications next to the application and the decision, and a blank rental application gives you a consistent place to collect the reference details in the first place.

This is general information, not legal advice. Rules change and local ordinances vary. Confirm current requirements with your city, county, or an attorney before you act.