@Account Closed
Please ask your wife where she looks, I would like to be enlightened.
I also find it funny that you say
And yet in your first post you want to go over and look at their current living quarters. Which one is more invasive?
How do you know you're seeing all of the bank statements? Outflow does not equal debt. What if I'm servicing $35,000 of credit card debt by paying the monthly minimum? You would never know. What if I get paid in all cash?
I note that you're in Maryland; many states do not give the same protections in terms of tenancy that states like NY,FL,CA and to a lesser extent your state do.
In terms of rights and responsibilities, of course there are responsibilities that come along with viewing credit reports or any other sort of information. It's called the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and it requires that you get tenant consent and notify them if you plan not on renting to them because of something in their report ("Adverse Action"). It also places certain responsibilities on the tenant screening company, but that's not germane to the discussion here.
Finally, you say you are a landlord, not a creditor and talk about loaning vs tenancy.
To which I would say two things:
1. The whole point of going through the screening process and including credit reports is to prevent you from becoming a creditor/judgment holder of your tenant.
2. If you give a product or service to someone on installment payments or any sort of deferred payment system, then it's some sort of loan. We may not treat renting as that in a legal capacity, but how is it different then DirectTV or cellular service? You provide the service upfront and expect to get paid down the road. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, chances are, it's a duck.
