Will A Tenant Background Report Show Mortgage Payment History?

You have a tenant applicant who owned a home but now wants to rent to you. You might be curious what happened and if a background report will show their payment history on that mortgage.

This was a question that received recently in our Facebook group RentPrep For Landlords.

Here’s the video response we gave showing exactly what this information would look like in one of ourSmartMove reports.

If you don’t want to watch the video this still frame pulled from the video at the 40 second mark shows how this information is displayed in one of our reports.

Will A Tenant Background Report Show Mortgage Payment History?

This is pulled from the Trade Lines section of our SmartMove report and the account type is listed as “Mortgage.”

To the right you will see their late payment history. Green checks signal on time payments where a red X signals a late payment. This could be a late payment of just a few days and would not show in the 30 – 60 – 90 options above.

Also available in the Trade Lines section of our report will be any payment history on any loans or lines of credit.

Should I Deny A Tenant Applicant For Late Mortgage Payments?

This is a judgment call and every case is different.

Try and get an understanding of the situation of why the mortgage payments were missed. Did the person go through a divorce, medical expenses, lose a job?

If they’re claiming they’ve had good job history and there isn’t any reasonable explanation of why they missed payments than this can be a red flag.

Also, take a look at the terms of the mortgage.

The image you’re seeing below is not blurred out (besides the bank name and account number) because it is a snapshot of my own report.

mortgage payment history for tenant applicant

I wanted to show you all the details you will see when you order a SmartMove report through RentPrep.

The terms are highlighted because this is the mortgage payment. In this particular case everything checks out because I’ve paid the mortgage on time each month.

The terms will give you a better idea of what the person was paying so you can contrast that against the rent you’re asking for.