To Accept or not Accept...

[Ely Lenik]

Need some advice from veteran landlords. I have a female applicant for an apartment in a 2 unit house who with 2 little children who is currently going through a divorce. She's had a good stable job for 15 years and her financials are ok but really only good with the child support that will be due her. We don't know much of anything about the ex financially or emotionally. 

Would you:

1. Accept

2. Have a conversation with her to get a better feel for the Dad and his financial capabilities and emotional state not to be crazy

3. Run

[Kyle J.]

@Ely Lenik  Does she have an actual court order for child support that she can demonstrate through bank deposits that the father is making his required payments on?  Or is this some future support that she anticipates a soon to be ex-husband is possibly going to have to pay her based on an informal agreement that the two of them came to between themselves?

If it's the former, I'd consider any court-ordered child support as additional income and accept her if she met all of my other qualifications.  You don't list where you're from, but it's important to know your local laws on this matter.  For example, in my state, landlords can't discriminate based on source of income, and child support is income just like any other.  (I have to consider "any lawful, verifiable source of income".)  So, if you could verify a court order showing the amount, and bank deposits showing the payments were being made, like I said, I'd consider it as income towards qualifying.

On the other hand, your comment where you referenced the child support "that will be due to her", made me think that perhaps there was no court order in place yet and/or actually being paid.  If that's the case, no - I would not consider it.  Because she may think she's getting one amount, but who knows what a court would actually end up ordering (or even if/when a court would end up ordering any support at all).  Family law cases can tend to drag on.

So I guess I'd need more info than you provided on the status of the case, whether or not there's an actual court order, and whether the payments are being made, before I decided for sure.  However, those are my initial thoughts.