Omission of information on application a fail?

Question

Background check reported 2 previous home addresses that was left off the rental application.  These 2 are immediately prior to the current address.  Leaning toward not approving this applicant since omission is same as untruthful.  Would you reject also?

Ken Louie · Answer

The applicant's story was that he vacated the property due to rodent and or bug infestation. I'm assuming he did not leave on good terms with the landlord and hence the omission of the information.  He is not interested in my property anymore so the process continues.

Thanks to everyone for your contributions to my question.

Colleen F. · Answer

I would ask them about the addresses. I would just say it is showing additional addresses for you, did you live anywhere else?  See what comes out. Let them sink their own ship. Could be a relative.  Did the landlord reference say they are living there now?

Kris L. · Answer

Not an automatic fail in my books, but will require follow up.  If I had other candidates, I would check how solid their applications were before trying to pull info out of this applicant.

John Underwood · Answer

Your right to do so. Not sure I would do it over leaving off an address. They may have viewed this as not important.

If their credit score and income look good and I thought they would be a good tenant who takes care of my property and pays their rent then I would definitely consider them.

Carl Fredrickson · Answer

ID theft will sometimes result in incorrect addresses in the records.

Ken Louie · Answer

I suppose I should ask the applicant about those two addresses that he left off.  Other than that the background check was clean, no evictions, no criminal records and previous landlord references checked out.

Nathan Gesner · Answer

I would reject them unless they could provide a very good reason.

Applicants usually try to hide a former address because they don't want you to discover their lease violations, unpaid rent, eviction, or other problems. This is especially true if they are hiding the two most recent addresses.

However, there may be a legit reason. Maybe they were only at those locations for a few months each? Maybe they were living with a relative or friend and not paying any rent or under any contract?

It also depends on the time span. If the last verifiable Landlord reference is from two years ago, I would reject them because I have no idea how they've been living for the most recent two years.

Omission of information on application a fail?

Most Popular Reply