Attracting and choosing good tenants

If you want to attract tenants who will care for your property as much as you do, it’s important to present the property at its best. The Residential Tenancies Act says you must make sure it is clean, and in a fit and habitable condition at the beginning of the tenancy.

If a prospective tenant is interested, ask them to complete a pre-tenancy application form to find out:

• their name and contact details
• where they are living now and their renting history
• ID details
• references you can contact to find out more about them.

This application form also gives the landlord permission to do a credit check.

Before you decide to rent them the property, contact all their references and do the credit check. If you don’t like what you find out, look for a different tenant. You do not have to advise a prospective tenant why you are not going to let the property to them.

Also be careful in any discussions leading up to an agreement. If you tell a tenant they can have a property, or a tenant says they will take it, or money is paid, this may be binding, even if an agreement has not yet been signed.

A word about discrimination

You can’t base your decision on who to rent to, or whether to continue a tenancy, on things such as a person’s marital status, religion or race. For example, it’s illegal to deny a tenancy to a person because they belong to a certain church, or to change an existing lease after it has been signed because you discover the tenant is unemployed.

If this does happen, you could be taken to the Tenancy Tribunal or the Human Rights Commission for discrimination.

To find out more, download our information sheet Discrimination in tenancy matters.