Prospective Tenants with no Credit Score

[Daniel Windingstad]

Hey everyone, I am going to try to be as sensitive as possible on this! I have a property in an area where a lot of applicants do not have a SSN, or speak much english. I know a little spanish so we do ok on communication, but I don't know how to handle this in a way that is non discriminatory. I'm worried that if I ever need to involve law or courts for anything like eviction or collections, if/how that would work. And I also want to be as fair as possible. What do you do in those cases? 

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Daniel Windingstad:

Hey everyone, I am going to try to be as sensitive as possible on this! I have a property in an area where a lot of applicants do not have a SSN, or speak much english. I know a little spanish so we do ok on communication, but I don't know how to handle this in a way that is non discriminatory. I'm worried that if I ever need to involve law or courts for anything like eviction or collections, if/how that would work. And I also want to be as fair as possible. What do you do in those cases? 

I set standards for and apply them equally to all applicants. If you accept applicants with no social security number or the ability to read and understand a lease agreement, then you shouldn't require a social security number from anyone.

Two thoughts:

1. It's a dangerous precedent. It's difficult - often impossible - to verify their identity, address history, ability to pay debts, or criminal history without a social security number. This opens you to a lot of risk.

2. How will you hold them accountable? If they don't speak English, they can argue they didn't understand your lease and it wouldn't stand up in court. How will you track them if they stop paying rent, trash the property, and disappear?

It's a free country and you can do with it what you want. I don't begrudge people sneaking into our country to build a better life for themselves or their family, but I also don't want to support them or open myself up to risk. Our country has a housing crisis and it doesn't seem right to rent our properties to illegal immigrants when our citizens struggle to find a place to live.