Conditional nonrefundable deposit

[Paul Chen]

Am I legally able to take a conditional nonrefundable deposit from a section 8 tenant to prevent her from renting some place else other then mine during/after her end part of section 8 paperwork processing stage (provided she will get the final approval by section 8 that is; she told me she has been a section 8 tenant for years and she’s just being transfer from one city to another; she verbally agreed that she‘ll rent my place)? So that I won’t loose my other qualifying tenant in line to her possible mind changing after she get the final approval by section 8. Especially the final approval for transferring is going to take almost a whole month as she’d told me. In addition to another negative condition is that she requested to have her security deposit pay off during the first 6 months of the 1 year lease contract rather than before she moves in. Her edge for me to consider her over others is that she can offer higher and stable rent, but I need to verify if her higher rent is including utilities ASAP; she asked me to increase my asking rent to what she’s allowed from section 8 if I can provide her a cooking stove, and to install central air which I’m considering anyway.

And what should I tell my other turned down qualifying applicant without any discriminating element that I might not be aware of if they ask for the specific reason after I’d told them that I’d already chosen a financially better qualifying tenant over them? Am I required to disclose further by law?

Perhaps I should simply take the other qualifying applicant who will pay $175/mo less over this section 8 tenant that’s having a few unpredictable obstacles?

What’s a fair ballpark figure for a real estate attorney to charge for supervising my process of finding a tenant; over looking the section 8 contract and my own lease contract/documentations with the tenant; I’ll be using the online tools for application, credit report / background check and customized lease contract. Does the real estate attorney offer such service to begin with?

Thank you for any advises.

REI rookie.