Touring Tenant’s Homes to screen

[Nick Wilson]

Hello BP!

I’m about to start looking for renters on my first Rental Property. I’ve heard on a couple BP Podcasts about touring a potential renters property to check and see their current living conditions before renting them the property. When I broached the idea to my property manager this was her response:

My concern with this is fair housing we can only approve or deny people based off our written criteria. If someone is approved with flying colors but then I tour their home and it’s deplorable I can’t turn around and deny them or if I see it first I still have no grounds to stop them from applying or deny them. Now if it’s in a rental verification from the current landlord and they were charged for xyz or it says they damaged the property we can deny them based off of negative rental history. Doing it the other way there’s just too much gray area and room for someone to cry discrimination

What are your thoughts- I can I do this?

Thanks in advance,

Nick