Buying a property with a sex offender tenant

[Ari Archer]

Hi–

I'm in contract on 4plex in northern California. After checking the Megan's Law website, I found that one of the tenants is a registered sex offender. Their offense was in 1994 and they have been in the property, apparently without issue, for 10 years. I brought this information to the seller and they had no idea. Doing my inspection, the tenant would not allow access to his unit claiming he had no knowledge that inspections were happening. The seller's agent clearly said that all tenants were given notice. All 3 other tenants knew we were coming. I'm now rescheduling a viewing of this unit. Seller had only owned the property for <2 years. Also, important to note that the newest tenant, who is great, has a 7 year old child. 

Now, I'm a believer in second chances and that everyone needs a safe place to live. I also don't want to have this knowledge hanging over me. I'm curious to know how people would proceed. Ideally I would like the tenant with the child to at least know what's going on. Considering I don't currently own the property, I would also like this information to be disclosed before I take ownership. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Michele Fischer]

Agree that this information is readily available to those who want to take the energy to research it. I wonder how much longer before this tenant becomes unregistered.

In my volunteer work I came across a registered sex offender.  I made sure that other volunteers knew and we made sure we weren't alone with him, but we didn't blab to the neighbors and he was one of the best people we worked with.

We've struggled with whether to rent to registered offenders and if so how much to disclose to prospective future neighbors.  Of course this population has a horrible time finding housing and they deal with the consequences for a long time.  I'd suggest evaluating his future tenancy on his objective behaviors.