Why Tenant Screening Is Wickedly Important
Mistake number one for landlords: renting on a hunch.
Basic credit checks are just one piece of the pie. Employment verification, references from previous landlords and, where appropriate, a criminal background check fill in the rest. A few years ago we talked with BackCheck, a Canadian background-checking company, about what landlords find when they do check. Their figures at the time:
- About 10% of Canadians have a criminal record.
- 28.5% of tenant applicants had poor credit.
- 12.1% of tenant applicants lied about their employment.
- Almost 25% of landlords would not recommend a former tenant to another landlord.
- About 45% of their small-landlord customers requested a criminal background check.
A criminal record check can turn up many kinds of offences, not only violent ones: fraud and theft, for example, which most landlords would want to know about before renting. Ultimately, the responsibility for who you bring into your property, and into your other tenants' building, is yours. Updated October 2026: what Ontario landlords may ask and consider when screening is set out in the Ontario Human Rights Commission's policy on rental housing. Read it before you ask for a criminal record check.
Whatever you check, apply the same checks to every applicant, and keep within Ontario's Human Rights Code, which limits what you can ask and how you can decide. The Ontario Human Rights Commission publishes guidance for landlords.
Originally published March 7, 2013. The figures above are from 2013. Rentingwell no longer offers background checks in the app. We've removed links that no longer work.