Having College Tenants

[Hunter Copp]

So I will be planning on renting out 3 bedrooms to college roommates for a house hack. I was wondering when signing the lease with these three roommates, do you have them sign and then have a co-signer if they are not the ones paying the rent? For example there parents would be paying for it. Do I get the parents signature on the lease agreement? Thank you.

[Nathan Gesner]

College students typically do not have the income, Landlord references, credit, or other items necessary to determine if they are qualified to rent. In this case, you would use co-signers for them. I have each of them sign their own lease agreement and their co-signer signs a separate Co-signer Agreement. I use a separate agreement because I want to make it very clear the co-signer is financially responsible but they don't have rights to the property and they can't call me to whine about little-Johnny's leaking bathroom faucet! Residents handle resident issues and co-signers handle financial issues.