Tenant screening in Batumi: finding a tenant, the lease and the deposit

A tenant who leaves without paying the electricity bill and the last month's rent is easier to screen out before the lease than to chase afterwards. That is why our tenant screening in Batumi starts with the very first enquiry: we find a tenant for a year or for the winter, check their ID and ability to pay, and draw up the lease, the deposit and a handover form with photos of the apartment. Once the tenant has moved in, you can run the rental yourself with our documents or leave the apartment with us.

How we find a tenant

First we agree the terms with you: the rent, the term, the deposit, who pays the utilities, whether children and pets are allowed. We put all of this straight into the listing, and some of the unsuitable enquiries drop away on their own. We photograph the apartment in daylight, with the wardrobes open and the lights on, so that the photos match what people will see at the viewing.

We post the listing on the local sites where people look for a home by the month or for a year. Before any viewing, we ask everyone who responds the same questions: who will live there, for how long, where they are moving from and when they are ready to move in. We invite people to a viewing when their answers match your terms.

Our manager handles the viewings, so you don't need to come. For a candidate in another city we show the apartment by video call, but we then note in the handover form that the viewing was by video. If you live abroad, everything else to do with the apartment can also be handled remotely through us.

Tenant screening in Batumi: what we check

We only look at what will later affect the rent payments and the condition of the apartment:

For each candidate we send you a short summary: who they are, for how long, what they have confirmed and what they haven't. The decision on who moves in stays with you. If you have doubts but the person suits you, you can take two months' rent in advance and write this into the lease.

We don't collect more data than we need

For the lease we need the tenant's name, the details of their ID document and a contact. In Georgia personal data is processed under the 2023 Law on Personal Data Protection, and we take from the tenant only what the lease cannot be drawn up without. We don't ask for a full bank statement, copies of relatives' documents, health information or access to social media.

The tenant confirms their income with whatever they find easiest to show. On a bank statement, the lines with their salary or transfers for a previous rental are enough, and they can cover up the rest. The copy of the ID document is kept with the lease, by you and by us, and we don't pass it on to anyone else except where the law requires it.

The lease, the deposit and a handover form with photos

We draw up the lease in English, Georgian or Russian, and if the tenant and the owner speak different languages, we set it out in two columns. Besides the term, the amount and the deposit, it includes clauses that owners usually remember too late:

• a ban on sub-letting the apartment short-term or moving other people in without your consent;
• how many hours' notice the tenant gets if you, the manager or a tradesman needs to enter the apartment;
• who calls out and pays for a tradesman if an appliance breaks, and what counts as damage caused by the tenant;
• what happens to the deposit if the tenant leaves before the end of the term;
• the tenant's obligation to allow viewings for the next tenants in the final month.

We take the deposit and the first payment on the day of signing, by bank transfer or against a signed receipt. On the same day we draw up the handover form: an inventory of the furniture and appliances, photos of every room and every existing defect, and the electricity, gas and water meter readings. The tenant gets the keys after signing the handover form, and we record every set of keys handed over.

After move-in: run the rental yourself or with us

Without management, we hand you the lease, the handover form, the photos and the tenant's contact details, and from then on you run the rental yourself. Record the date and amount of every payment from the first month. In a dispute with the tenant this is your evidence, and at the start of the year this history provides the figures from which the tax on rental income is calculated.

If you leave the apartment with us for managed long-term rental, a manager handles the payments, bills, breakdowns and visits, and you get a report once a month. You can also switch to management later. The lease won't need redoing then: it already has the clause on how the manager and tradesmen enter the apartment.

How much tenant search and screening costs

Finding a long-term tenant costs from 90% to 120% of one month's rent, and it is paid by the owner. This covers the photos, the listing, sorting through enquiries and the viewings. Checking a candidate costs 210–300 ₾, and the lease with a handover form and inventory 240–360 ₾. Both services can be ordered separately if you have found a tenant yourself or through people you know.

The price goes up for an urgent search by a specific date, for an apartment with a high rent or an unusual layout that gets fewer responses, and for viewings in the evenings and at weekends. It is lower for a renovated, furnished apartment that doesn't need preparing for the photos. If we manage the apartment after the tenant moves in, the commission for managing a long-term rental is 15–18% of the monthly rent. The final price is set after we have seen the apartment and agreed the terms in the contract.

When the tenant leaves: wear and tear or damage

The handover form from move-in also works at move-out: the apartment is compared with the inventory photos, and the meter readings with the figures from day one. Disputes usually arise over where wear and tear ends and damage begins. A worn floor by the entrance, faded curtains and marks left by furniture on a wall count as normal wear and tear, but a broken wardrobe door or a burn hole in the carpet do not. That is why we note the approximate age of the furniture and appliances in the inventory: if an old washing machine breaks down, nobody has to argue about whether the tenant pays for it as if it were new.

Only amounts expressly provided for in the lease are deducted from the deposit, and the tenant receives the calculation in writing. The clause on viewings in the final month lets you look for the next tenant while the current one is still living in the apartment. If the apartment needs freshening up before a new lease, we do the preparation for renting out and minor repairs ourselves, and if it needs renovating from scratch, see how we do a renovation that will serve tenants for years.