Ever rent to illegal immigrants?

[Shawn Kane]

I live in the top floor of a duplex, and had a gentleman stop by today asking to rent the bottom unit.

He stated that he and his family are illegal immigrants, but have decent jobs and enough income to meet a portion of my rental criteria.

However, without social security numbers or credit, it obviously becomes difficult to do full background checks and pull credit.

In the world of eviction moratoriums, I’m extremely cautious about renting to them but if they pay a higher rent, I am curious if it will work.

Anyone think the relationship will be symbiotic since they don’t want to get deported i.e hopefully always pay rent on time, no noise complaints, in general stay under the radar?

[Joe Splitrock]

@Shawn Kane probably the strongest argument against illegal immigrants is because they get exploited by things such as paying higher rents and under market salaries. Landlords take advantage of illegal immigrants because they can't complain for fear of being reported. You can't exploit people based on national origin. Exploitation would be charging them extra or holding their immigration status as a threat.

If you want to rent to them, treat them like anyone else. If you require a social security /tax ID number for credit checks and photo ID, you have to require this of everyone. You can't apply different rules to different people. Many illegal immigrants actually do pay taxes, have a tax payer ID and have a state photo ID.