Tenant Wants to pay entire years worth of rent but...

[Carson Kesner]

I showed a rental today to a possible tenant, who for all intents and purposes, checked all the boxes, they agreed to sign a 12 month lease @$1000 a month and pay $1000 security deposit. Non smoker, no pets, makes 70K a year. They even went as far to offer to pay the entire years rent and security deposit up front. 

This my first property so my experience is exactly zero. There is no norm for me.  Some form of intuition is telling me though  if a person is waving around money like mad, they probably don't have much of it. 

With that being said, I started digging a little more and found out the tenant is in the middle of a divorce. He made it clear that they do not plan on staying past 12 months. I don't have a problem with finding a different tenant in a year but I am curious to know if divorce lawyers (in ohio) are going to come looking for a pile of missing money that just so happens to equate a years worth of rent and a security deposit.  If and when they do find that missing money, can they forcefully take it back? 

What would a seasoned Landlord do here? walk away from it? rent it out? Any input is appreciated. 

[Meryl McElwain]

@Carson Kesner I've paid up front on leases my whole life. Because I'm self employed. My income in the early years could be highly variable and I wanted to make sure that certain essential bills were always paid upfront so I didnt have to worry that I would have a place to live. Fast forward to now, I still do that because it gives me peace of mind. The guy is probably just giving himself a little runway. Divorce can be unpredictable. His credit is probably shot. Which is very common in divorce but doesnt necessarily matter to you. Take the money, escrow it because you cant access it all at once unless you have an agreement to that effect. No one is going to come looking to "pull that money back from you." Why that wont happen is a really long explanation but the short answer here is take the money. The guy is probably a good tenant just trying to make sure he has a place to stay while he rides out his divorce.