So confused on how to proceed on this tenants

[Jeyo Punnakottil]

So confused on how to proceed .Here is a nutshell.I have a ppty ready for rent.Been on market for 20+ days .Getting tons of showing request but most if not all donot pass my initial screening terms which are

1. Credit 680+

2. Income 3x rent

3. No evictions

4 .No aggressive breed pets

Finally a couple passed the screening .They came saw the house n fell in love.But once applications came in red flags started popping up

One candidate is perfect but other is not .Here are there screening results

1st candidate

790+ credit

Makes 4x rent

Been on current job for 18 yrs

No pets

No evictions

Credit report has nothing serious

2nd candidate

620 credit

Makes 1.8X rent

No pets

Couple of late payments on credit report and those are in past 3 yrs

Been on current job for 3 yrs

4 collections on credit report

No evictions.

Interesting things to note about applicant 1&2

Both are not married in sense they claim single status on application

Both work at same place under one boss .

Both are living in separate apartments .Coming to live together under 1 roof in my rental.

The 2nd candidates current landlord (apartment)says she owes 800$ in cleaning fee as she left 7 bags of trash and dirty carpets and messed up cabinets, she paid rent on time but didnot put a security deposit so they cannot collect the cleaning fee.

Will you rent to these applicants .If so what precautions you will take? especially when drafting lease and taking security deposit.

[Joan MacDonald]

Make sure the lease says that all signors are "jointly and severally liable" for the terms of the lease. If either one leaves the other with monies owed to the landlord, you can sue each of them with legal good standing without concern for whatever agreement they had between them.