Applicant with no SSN

[Michele Fischer]

Need some advice, please.

We have a lot of Hispanic families in my rental neighborhood, but they rarely apply for our units (not sure why, except some Craigslist ads do advertise that they speak Spanish), so I don't have a lot of experience with this.

We got an application where the husband has a SSN and what appears to be a W-2 job.  The wife does not have a SSN, does not work.  There are two school aged kids if that is relevant.  They have lived in the US for at least 8 years.  They are scoring very high on my screening criteria, have a lot of the attributes I look for in a tenant.

I'm not sure what to do about the wife though.  What questions should I be asking and how can I run a background check without out a SSN?  I am more concerned about criminal than credit, but am wondering what other considerations there are, and what others would do in my situation?

[Robert Anderson]

This may be one of those "gut" judgements, but when I think of criminal offenders, a married mother of 2 is not the profile on the top of my list. I would weigh the absence of this information with the Husbands records, and use your judgement about the character of the couple, based on your interactions. Seems like it should be alright. And if I may *gasp* stereotype, Hispanics usually have a deep family and religion oriented culture; that would further ease my mind about the criminal concerns. Best of luck to you!