Who needs to be on lease and application?

[Paul C.]

Hi, I currently have my first property listed for rent. I've had a couple of prospective tenants that would like to apply and I have a couple questions. Do all adults need to be on the application if I want to run them all through a background and credit check? Does this mean I will have to pay the fee for those checks for each person? What if the tenant only wants to have one or two of the renters on the application and lease? What about the lease, should everyone have to sign it or just the person who is responsible? My position is that I want to protect myself from getting bad tenants. Thanks!!!

[Peter MacKercher]

@Paul C. You need to conduct full screening for every adult at the property. You need to have every adult who's living at the property as a responsible party on the lease.  Otherwise, why bother screening or signing a lease at all? The whole point of this is so that you know who is living in the property, and without having the screening done for everyone, you don't, and if every adult doesn't sign the lease then you don't have the same legal standing with each resident, either. 

Edit: The application fee question is more of a "how you want to run your business" question, though we charge the same fee to every adult. Some companies will reduce fees for multiple applicants. The argument against such a practice is, at least two-fold: 1) Your business should treat everyone equally, and 2) if someone can't afford a $25-$45 dollar application fee, can they afford rent? Why didn't they save up money for such an expense if they knew they'd be moving? People who have issues with application fees (or who have paid multiple application fees because they've been denied by many places) are a concern and typically risky options for tenants.