My husband and I are planning to rent out our house. We have a few prospectvie tenants but we really want to do a back ground check to make sure htye don't have a criminal past. We want to somewhat know who we are renting to.

What is the best way to go aobut a back ground check? Will the person be notified that one was ran on them? We intend to tell them we have the option of running one.

the state where I reside allows criminal (and driving) history checks through the State Department of Justice. I think the cost is $25 for each check. Might want to check out your state's DoJ website.

If I were landlord, I'd also want to look at their credit history....

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"God is great,
Beer is good, and people are crazy"

in Maryland it's Maryland Judiciary and it's free and tells every little bleep on a criminal.

We will be renting out our house as well. If you don't mind me asking, how are you going about it - meaning lease, deposit, etc.
If you can please email me a choices817@hotmail.com.

Thanks,
Judi

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"Try to see the glass half-full."

I would LOVE to find a free site for background checks. They always cost money! Or at least, they only let you get so far into the file, right to the 'good stuff' and then they want to charge you to access that good stuff! I live in FL and I don't know of any site here that let's you check.... unless you are a sexual offender/predator, then you can look on familywatchdog.com for the perverts, haha.

I am in MN and our state has a free website that lists all counties and all court activity for both criminal and conciliation courts. I found it on google and it was very helpful.....it lists things like evictions, judgements from former landlords or from Credit cards, etc. So if your tenants have ever been sued in your state it will be on there. Our state also lists things like traffic tickets, divorces, child support cases, etc etc, which I don't feel would automatically disqualify a renter.

I searched the Wisc site because we are close to the boarder, but their site was hard to use.......and didn't find much info, so your experience may vary!!

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"It's not about how much baggage you have, it's about whether or not you can carry your own baggage with grace and dignity."

That's a great resource. However, if you do a background through the likes of your state's DOJ, then that search will go through NCIC/CJIN which is the nationwide database used by all law enforcement. It covers all states, all crimes and whether they were convicted or not.

__________________
"God is great,
Beer is good, and people are crazy"