Tenant with 2 bankruptcies

[Jacob Daniels]

Hello Forum,

I'm in the process of screening a tenant for a LTR, and received an application from someone with 2 bankruptcy filings, one in '15 and another in '17 and no previous rental history.  Applicants credit score is around 550, but does make 3x rent from a very large company for the past decade. Applicants spouse has a very good credit score but only makes 1x the rent. My question is would you rent to this potential tenant or just nix the application.

[Bruce Woodruff]

No way. The BK alone would not be a deal killer for me.....IF they had recovered by this point in time. But they sound like they are still messed up, their credit score should have gone up beyond 550 in 5 years......

But, more importantly, what does your screening criteria say about this? Do you allow BKs or not? You should have very clear criteria and stick to them.