Newbie - First Ever Tenant Screening

[Mike B.]

I found my first tenant and everything seemed fine. I went over the requirements with her. Gross income three times rent, Credit score greater than 600, etc... All is good she says.

During the showing she mentioned her domestic partner owns a house in another state and so she (gay couple) doesn’t have rental history. She is “wrapping things up over there” and wont be here to see the rental. Not a big deal to me. What seems odd is the applicant has a couple children too. But hay it is 2021 and I live in a progressive city. So I suppose it’s possible she is a lesbian with children from a previous heterosexual relationship.

Now she turns in the application and I see her income is just below $40,000/yr, so she doesn’t meet the income requirements for the house by herself. She needs to gross $67,000/yr to be at 3 times rent. Also, she states some credit issues with at least one of her scores falling below 600. She lists her relationship status as “domestic partnerships” and the other applicant as her partner. So I’m supposed to consider them a couple with combined income? They aren’t married.

Now I look at the out of state applicants information. She also makes about $40,000/yr, but I notice she has lived in the other state for over ten years. That’s one heck of a long distance relationship. Also zero rental history and she mentions bad credit too. Under her relationship status she says “Single” but what throws me off is she lists the primary applicant as her Partner and the kids as her children.

I’m kinda torn here, because if they are indeed a lesbian couple they meet the combine household income requirements. But they live in different states and both of them have stated credit issues.

My wife says...no. They aren’t a couple. If they were married they would be a couple, but since they aren’t married we shouldn’t consider them a household and they both need to qualify individually. The wife also says they don’t make enough money and really we are almost doing them a favor by rejecting them. And she says I’m not allowed to screen tenants moving forward. :-/ Ugh...

[Brian Tome]

I would treat them like a couple for screening purposes if they say they are a couple.  Domestic partners, married, whatever, they are two adults renting a property together so treat them as a family unit.  As stated by others previously, never treat anyone differently based on their orientation or relationship status.  If you would rent to a newly married couple, a boyfriend/girlfriend that just got together, or a couple of adult friends/siblings/etc. you should rent to two adults that want to live together for any reason.

However, I would not rent to these particular applicants because they don't seem to have any rental history.  I have found that people often report no history when they have prior evictions, so if applicants can't show two years of good rental history with references, or residential property ownership we don't rent to them.  We will allow cosigners in the case of people who are just starting out in life (i.e. moving out of parent's house), but we won't rent to anyone with a prior eviction and we strictly adhere to all other screening criteria even when there is a cosigner.

Do your due diligence, be patient, and get a good tenant.  There are plenty of them out there, and nothing else will serve you half as well in the long run.