How to check rental history and contact previous landlords

Say you’re a rental owner with a good-looking application in hand. The income checks out, the credit score is fine, and there’s a phone number next to “previous landlord.” A lot of owners skim past that line. Others make one quick call, hear something nice, and approve. Both habits cost money, and a clear tenant screening process is what separates a lucky placement from a repeatable one.

This post is for owners and investors in Pace and the surrounding area who screen their own tenants, or who want to know what a good screening process looks like before handing it off. We’ll cover what to collect, how to confirm a landlord is real, which questions to ask, which ones to avoid, and how to handle a denial correctly.

In This Guide

Why the Landlord Call Still Earns Its Place

A credit report tells you how someone handles debt. It says nothing about the neighbor complaints, the extra people living in the unit, or the damage that never got reported.

Only a previous landlord can tell you those things. Say an owner buys a rental with a tenant already in place and never asks about that tenant’s history. When the tenant later causes serious damage, the owner finds out the last landlord had documented the same pattern. The information was available. Nobody asked for it.

Here’s what a credit report won’t show you:

• Noise and neighbor complaints: these rarely land on a credit file.
• Unauthorized occupants or pets: a landlord notices, a bureau doesn’t.
• Unreported damage: a deposit dispute usually never reaches a credit report.
• How they left: whether they gave proper notice or just disappeared.

The call is a tool, not a verdict. We’ll get to how to weigh it.

Start With a Complete Application

A good landlord call starts before the phone rings. Your application should collect the details below for every applicant, every time.

• Addresses and dates: at least three years of rental history, with move-in and move-out dates.
• Landlord name and phone: plus an email if they have one.
• Monthly rent paid: you’ll compare this to what the landlord says.
• Reason for leaving: you’ll compare this too.
• Written authorization: best practice under federal credit reporting law, and it makes any screening company report easier to pull.

Look for gaps. A six-month hole in the timeline might be a stay with family, a home purchase, or military housing. It might also be a tenancy the applicant left off on purpose. Ask about it directly.

Confirm the Landlord Is Real Before You Trust the Answers

Not every name on an application belongs to an actual landlord.

Check the Number and the Name

Picture a landlord who calls the number on an application and reaches a disconnected line. Rather than dig further, they approve the tenant. Two months later they learn the “previous landlord” was made up, and the applicant had an eviction on record from three years earlier. A proper process would have caught it.

Here’s a simple way to verify:

1. Look up the property address in county records and confirm the owner of record matches the name given.
2. If a management company is listed, find its office number yourself rather than relying only on the applicant’s number.
3. If you can’t reach anyone, try email and keep a copy of the attempt.
4. If you still can’t confirm, ask the applicant for another reference, such as an older landlord or a lease copy.

Watch for Friends and Family

Say an applicant has strong income but lists only one previous landlord, and that landlord is a cousin. You have no way to tell whether the glowing review reflects real tenant behavior. If the only reference is a relative, ask for a different one. If none exists, lean harder on eviction records and payment history.

The Questions to Ask Every Time

Unscripted calls wander. They also produce answers you can’t compare from one applicant to the next, and they can drift into questions you should never ask. A short, consistent set of factual questions fixes both problems.

1. Did this person live at the property from [date] to [date]?
2. What was the monthly rent?
3. Did they pay on time? How often were they late?
4. Did they give proper notice before moving out, or end the lease early?
5. Was there damage beyond normal wear and tear?
6. Were there lease violations, complaints, or unauthorized occupants or pets?
7. Would you rent to them again?

That last question is often the most telling one. A fast “yes” and a long pause both tell you something.

Write the answers down as you go. Use the same list for every applicant.

What You Should Never Ask

That means no questions about the applicant’s children, pregnancy, disability, religion, or where they’re from. It also means using the same criteria for every applicant. Calling previous landlords for some applicants and skipping it for others can create liability on its own.

Two more rules worth knowing:

• Listings count. Florida’s Fair Housing Act also covers ads and statements. Screening criteria in a listing, like “no kids” or “must have a U.S. rental history,” can show a preference based on a protected class.
• Disability. When you apply rental-history requirements to an applicant with a disability, you have to consider reasonable accommodations in your policies.

If a landlord volunteers something on the call that touches any of these topics, don’t follow up on it. Note the factual parts and move on.

How to Read What You Hear

Think about the incentives. A landlord who wants a tenant gone has every reason to say nice things. A landlord who wants to keep a good tenant may quietly undercut the application. Neither answer is a verdict.

So weigh the call against everything else you have:

• Eviction and court records: these are public and don’t depend on anyone’s mood.
• Payment history: does the rent amount match the application?
• Application consistency: do the dates, addresses, and reasons for leaving line up?

Red Flags Worth Slowing Down For

• The landlord can’t confirm basic dates or the rent amount.
• The applicant lists only a current landlord and skips earlier ones.
• The story on the phone doesn’t match the application.
• The only reference is a relative or friend.
• A reference sounds oddly vague about “how they left.”

A negative reference isn’t always a disqualifier. Landlords and tenants sometimes end up in disputes. Ask what happened, and look for paperwork.

Why You Call More Than One Landlord

Calling only the most recent landlord is a common miss. An applicant can list a current landlord they get along with and leave out the one who evicted them. Say your rent is $1,800 and an eviction takes six weeks to resolve. That’s about $2,700 in lost rent before court filing fees and repairs. Florida evictions typically take several weeks at minimum, so catching a prior eviction up front is cheap by comparison.

Rental History Looks Different Here

Pace is a fast-growing suburb of Pensacola in Santa Rosa County, with a large military-affiliated renter pool tied to NAS Pensacola and Eglin AFB. Local rental history doesn’t follow one pattern.

Judge conduct, not length of stay. A one-year tenancy is normal for a family on orders, and penalizing it means passing on strong applicants. Plenty of people searching for cheap houses for rent in Pensacola, FL are first-time renters or coming off living with family, so decide how you’ll handle a thin history before the application arrives.

Two local realities make a structured process more important:

• Applicant volume. Santa Rosa County’s rental market has tightened with population growth. More applications make it tempting to rush a decision.
• No safety net. Nothing does the reference checking for you. Your results depend on your own process and persistence.

State law also takes screening rules away from counties and cities, so Pace and Santa Rosa County can’t add their own on top. Only state and federal rules apply. A thorough screening, including landlord contact attempts, typically takes three to five business days.

Document the Call and Handle Denials Correctly

Write down the date, time, name, and answers for every call. Keep it in the applicant’s file. If a denial is ever questioned, that file is your defense.

When a Report Drives the Decision

If you deny an applicant, or add conditions like a higher deposit or a co-signer, based even partly on a report from a screening company, federal law requires an adverse-action notice. It can be oral, written, or electronic, though a written record is best practice. It must include:

1. The screening company’s name, address, and phone number, plus its toll-free number if it’s a nationwide agency.
2. A statement that the screening company did not make the decision and can’t explain why it was made.
3. The applicant’s right to a free copy of the report within 60 days from that company.
4. The applicant’s right to dispute the report’s accuracy or completeness with the company.

If a credit score played a role, you also have to give the applicant the score and its key factors in writing or electronically. Note that the free report comes from the screening company, not from you.

When a Landlord Call Drives the Decision

Information you gather straight from a previous landlord falls under a separate federal rule. The statute is written around credit, so whether it strictly applies to a landlord call is unsettled. The cautious route is to treat it as required. At the time of denial, tell the applicant they can request the reasons in writing within 60 days, and if they do, disclose the nature of the information within a reasonable time.

When Handing This Off Makes Sense

Done right, this process takes real hours. You chase callbacks, confirm owners of record, keep a file, and send correct notices, all while the unit sits empty.

That’s the work our team handles for owners. We manage 475 homes, and our average days on market is 30. David Seevers, who owns the company and runs operations, opened Service Matters in 2017 after getting his start working for a friend in the industry. His view is that the processes at most management companies in this area look similar. The difference is the people running them.

One homeowner put it this way in a review: “always quick with responses and getting new tenants in a timely manner.” Quick doesn’t mean careless, and a good process doesn’t skip the calls to get there.

We serve owners who want to reclaim their time and lean on professional management. If chasing previous landlords feels harder than it should, we’re open to a conversation.

FAQ

How far back should I check rental history?

At least three years is typical. Go further back if there are gaps or if recent history is thin.

What if the applicant has no previous landlord?

Decide in advance how you’ll handle it, such as verifying income and employment more closely, and apply that standard to every applicant in the same situation. First-time renters are common, and a thin history isn’t a reason to deny by itself.

Do I need the applicant’s permission to contact previous landlords?

A rental application gives a landlord a legitimate business reason to pull a screening report, and written authorization is a separate permissible purpose under federal credit reporting law. Get it signed with every application anyway, since it’s best practice.

Can I deny an applicant based on what a previous landlord said?

Yes, if you apply the same criteria to every applicant and the decision isn’t tied to a protected class. If the denial rests on a screening report or a landlord reference, follow the notice steps above.

What if the previous landlord won’t call me back?

Try phone and email, document each attempt, and give it the three to five business days a thorough screening typically takes. If you still can’t reach anyone, ask the applicant for another landlord reference rather than approving on a hunch.