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 it at its best. The Residential Tenancies Act says you must make sure your property 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.
Before you decide to rent them the property, contact all the references they’ve provided and do a credit check. If you don’t like what you find out, look for a different tenant.
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 like 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 discovered 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.