Landlord References

[Account Closed]

Hello all - 

I just tried calling a previous landlord/owner to get a reference on some applicants. She was grumpy and told me that since they have not given their notice to move out yet, she won't give me any information. She seemed kind of put out by my phone call in the first place. I've never had anyone refuse to give me any info before.

I can't call another landlord because they are young, and previously were in the army and living at home.

Everything else checks out fine. Would you rent to someone that you can't get a landlord reference on?

[Stephen E.]

@Account Closed is right that some landlords lie but these lies seem to come from differrent circumstances. The classic lying landlord is the small to medium sized landlord who has a problem, a likely nonpaying tenant on their hands and wants to palm them off on some other unsuspecting landlord so easing the tenant's exit from the current landlord's property. I used to think that corporate landlords would play it straight, or straighter, but recently I had a lying corporate landlord.

The facts are instructive: calls to the corporate office for a reference brought a referral to the building manager's office. Calls to that office got an employee on the line (the tenant had asked that I specifically ask for her by name) and the employee swore that the tenant was fine and dandy and had never been late with rent. This I knew to be a lie because when I had asked the tenant if he had any dealings with the Landlord and Tenant Board he admitted to me that he had been taken to the  LTB for nonpayment of rent and was now on a payment plan. Screening was basically over then but I made the call to the corporate landlord mainly to see what they would say. Evidently the tenant was either friends with someone in the rental office and had arranged that they would give a glowing reference, or it was just another case as outlined above: the corporate landlord desperate to palm off a bad tenant. Lesson learned, I do more digging around than I used to and am not much assured by positive landlord references on their own or as mitigation for poor credit scores. I no longer see corporate landlord references as substantially more reliable than those of small landlords.