Red Flag(s)?

Question

Hi everyone,

I have a prospective tenant looking to rent one of my larger units (3bd/2ba 1386 sqft for $3500/mo) in Connecticut.

I'm asking for the usual...

-Background check

-Credit Report

-References

-Proof of income

What's interesting is the prospective tenant wants the background check, the lease, and the credit report done through her husband who is taking up permanent residence in the Philippines, her explanation is that she doesn't have a SSN.

I'm not 100% sure I believe her, also not sure how to verify.

Should this prospective tenant default on the lease, I would think evicting her would be very difficult as it would cost a good amount of money to serve her husband with the eviction papers.

Just so we're clear...

1) The husband will not be living in the property, and likely won't step foot in it

2) The prospective tenant has her own business which does check out and does have legitimate income.

3) The prospective tenant does not want to sign the lease in her own name.

4) The prospective tenant does not want to fill out the background check or credit report.

5) The prospective tenant has genuinely been living in the US for 22 years (used to live in Florida).

Am I overreacting? Or should I just walk away from this deal?

Marcia Maynard · Answer

There is no legitimate reason a person should not be named on the rental agreement and for you not to complete your tenant screening. You need to treat all potential applicants the same, or you are opening yourself up to claims of discrimination. Follow what you have established as your rental criteria and follow your customary procedure.

Some tenants who do not have a SSN may have an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), issued by the IRS. Ask for that as @Elio Campiolo Jr suggests. If she has lived in the US for 22 years and owns a legitimate business here, there must be something she can present to you to help you qualify her.

If you can't verify her identity, it is a no go. If she wants to live in the property and not be named on the lease, it is a no go. If she won't apply and complete the application process, it is a no go. So, she wants to use the credentials of someone else, a "husband", to qualify and he won't even be living there? Red Flag Ridiculous!

About eviction... you can evict persons named on a lease and also all others residing at a location even if they are not named on the lease. You can evict persons named on a lease who are absent as well. The landlord-tenant laws for your jurisdiction will determine how to evict. But that is moot at this point, as you are not going to rent to the absentee husband nor to the mysterious wife.... right?

Stuart Birdsong · Answer

@Jose Cabanero Do the positives outweigh the negatives in this situation? I would say no, she may be a good tenant, but there are too many wildcards at play to move forward with her. Just my opinion though

Mike R. · Answer

run away

Travis Lloyd · Answer

Hold on for a second, you have some wildly different angles on this, and its not fair (to YOU) to lump them all together.

You ABSOLUTELY need her name on the lease, and not her husband. If she will not do that, you could make it a commercial lease and lease it to her (apparently legitimate?) company! Surely the company has an EIN, tax returns, assets, etc. Lease it to her company if not her, but her name would still need to appear on the lease as Manager/Member of the LLC.

Background checks / credit reports - those are usually must haves. With that said, if she has no SSN, the credit report will be blank (they don't track ITINs) and the background check will be based on her name (probably something rather common and therefore difficult to prove that it is or is not her). How do we compensate for this? CASH.

Offer to lease the place to her with her EIN and require tax returns... second choice, lease to her business (but get her name SOMEWHERE) on that lease... triple your normal security deposit... add 15-20% more to the rent... and make sure everything clears before you hand over a check.

Do you know why people with ITINs are GREAT tenants? They have a difficult time finding landlords who will work with them (as evidenced by all of the posts above). So they rarely move when they find someone who will, even if they have to pay a bit more. So all you really need to be sure of is their employment/income. Specifically when it is a single person - these are some of my favorite tenants because of long tenancy, reliable payments, and respect for the property.

Robert Blanchard · Answer

Why take the risk of letting her become an undocumented occupant of your rental?  What if she has her other undocumented relatives move in and end up doing damage to your rental or stop paying rent.  If her husband was wanting to make things legal, he would have rented a place for her before he left the country.  I am curious if the previous landlord had a similar request from them or if the husband was in country when they lived in FL.

Chris Martell · Answer

No way.  What recourse would you have if there's a problem later?

Elio Campiolo Jr · Answer

Hey Jose,

Could you ask her for her ITIN? Usually people that don't qualify for a SSN have an ITIN which gets linked to the credit bureaus and everything else.

Jose Cabanero · Answer

Seeing that I'm technically offering the space to a business, doesn't that make this a commercial lease which is not governed by the security deposit limits in CT? Or am I required to lease a commercial property under a commercial lease?

E.g. Office / retail / industrial / etc

Travis Lloyd · Answer

John is absolutely right about the legal limits in CT. Sorry - my "triple the deposit" was meant to illicit making sure it was sufficient to alleviate your concern (plus the rules were a little different in NYC and I sometimes forget!). Two-times rent is the largest amount allowed in CT, and that doesn't matter how you term it. So you cannot say "two months security, plus first month AND last month" because that "last month" portion also counts under state rules. But pairing a full 2 months' security with a sufficient increase in the monthly rate (therefore increasing the security accordingly) will help.