possible tenants: lopsided division of income *and* history

[Daniel Miller]

I'm studying the first application for my dad's house. It is a guy and gal that have been living separately and want to move in together. I met him at the viewing, but have not met her. I pulled credit reports on both of them via SmartMove.

He is a well paid engineer, credit score 800+, lots of money in the bank, paid last two months rent on time, all-green credit report. However, he owned his home from 2002 to 2011, then suddenly is renting. I *think* he said something about divorce, but need to clarify that. Either way, his all-green credit report goes back far earlier than the move from his house, so whatever caused that, did not damage his credit.

She has highly-fluctuating but generally low income, credit score 513, credit report looks like a paintball target; two accounts written off as bad debt, one in 2009, one in 2012.

I'm not sure how to evaluate this situation....

In evaluating the debt load that this rent would put on them, I am disregarding her (low and unreliable) income, and looking at his; the rent on this house will be about 50% of his income. When I look at the rest of his expenses, they add up to 80+% of what's left.

Somewhere on this site (I *think* it was on this site...) I saw some discussions of what should be considered a maximum debt load, I cannot find those discussions now; could someone here give me some pointers?? Either specific advice, or links to earlier threads that addressed the debt-load topic, or both, would be very welcome!

I'm sort of multiple questions in one thread, but I don't think they can really be separated;

1. Should I consider only his income, since hers is both low and highly fluctuating?

2. If I *do* consider only his income, is that debt load too marginal?

3. more generally, I presume this situation where one person is more stable than the other, is a common situation that many people here have dealt with; how do you typically handle it?

For now, I'm going to ask them for another month of bank statements, to try to get a better idea of their cash flow. I'm going to tell them outright that I think they are marginal for a rent of this size, and that's why I want more data. I have no doubt that they'll provide it, they really like the house, and have been very cooperative so far.