Credit Checks
In today's real estate market, rentals have gained in popularity. Agents that have never worked leases / lease purchases are finding themselves in these transactions for the first time with often times little or no formal training. Of the many different considerations on a Lease or Lease / Purchase transaction, the Buyer's ability to buy or the Tenant's ability to perform the terms of the lease are critical to the decision making process of the owner / landlord. To this end, the credit report is increasingly a topic of conversation among agents and their clients.
We have had a number of requests from the Broker Team lately for recommendations on companies that our agents can use for credit checks in leasing transactions. Although this could be viewed as performing that "extra mile" service for our clientele, in fact the agent and brokerage incur a great amount of risk and liability when procuring credit check services on behalf of others. The amount of money to be earned from performing credit checks is far outweighed by the liability to the agent and the brokerage so therefore our policy is to allow our tenant and landlord clients to search for and obtain the services of their own credit check service provider.
Our recommendation from a Broker team is to suggest the landlord or seller to "google" for credit search or background search companies on their own or search through the local yellow pages for credit check service providers. This will sufficiently transfer the liability from the agent and the brokerage and will allow you to provide more professional representation of your client. If things go wrong with the credit check then you as the agent will bare no responsibility for the outcome as you were not the one to provide the service.