Rental applicants on cash jobs

[Sami Gren]

Hi, I have prospective tenants that claim to have the husband-and-wife incomes that pay them cash, how would you go about verifying their income?

[Kyle J.]

I always consider two things with respect to someone's income before deciding to rent to them.  

First (and most importantly), can they afford to pay the rent.  My rental criteria reads that "the monthly household income must be three times the monthly rent and must be verifiable".  

Secondly, I consider, in the worst case scenario event (i.e. this person stopped paying, damaged my property, I had to evict, or they left owing me significant money, etc), how likely is it that I could successfully go after them and recover the money owed to me.  No landlord anywhere in the country would rent to a tenant if they thought the tenant would actually do any of those things to them, but the reality is that it happens.  It has happened to me just one time where a tenant did significant damage to the property and left owing back rent.  However, I was able to sue them in small claims court and get a judgment for the roughly $6k that was owed, and then I simply had their wages garnished until I was paid in full.  No way I could have done that if they had a job where they were paid in cash.  

Just some things to think about.