All Forum Posts by: Summer Noyes

This is my first rental and I found a good tenant and went through the screening process with her. Almost completely done and she asks if a roommate is possible. It's fine with me as it is a 2b/2b. I am in the process of screening the roommate and while she is acceptable, I'd probably require a co-signer if she was on her own. It made me think if it would be better to allow my initial tenant to sublease the room to the second tenant vs. me have them as roommate. Advantages vs. disadvantage? I've already told them I would only accept one check a month, no separate payments. If I sublease, as I understand it, this leaves the initial occupant on the hook for everything the second occupant does. If I rent as roommates I can make them jointly responsible, so kind of the same thing? I'm trying to figure out the big differences and how I do the lease different as well. Can I say that she can only sublet to this person? Thanks in advance for any input.

@Greg 

@Greg M. thank you much. I had investigated the new laws but thought I wasn't exempt. I just looked again at my City Landlord Tenant resources and you are in fact correct I am exempt! I will be sure to place this in my lease.

Thanks!

I am formulating my first fixed term lease agreement. I am in California where there seem to be a lot of little laws. I bought NOLO "The California Landlord's Law Book", which comes with downloadable forms, including a fixed term lease. Most of it I like, but there are bits and pieces that I want to add from the other book I bought from BP, "The Book on Managing Rental Properties", which also has a downloadable lease. Can I do this? If so, how do I legally give credit to both of these authors and not infringe on any copyrights? I wanted to use the NOLO lease as my basis and that comes with their copyright/logo in the footer. I realize they both provide the leases to use, but I wasn't sure about altering them? In the end, I'm still having the lease reviewed by a legal service as far as the lease itself. If anyone has info on this I'd greatly appreciate it. I did reach out to BP customer service and I am waiting to hear back. Thanks again.

I completely understand. Their marriage status or their children's status makes no difference to me. I only included it because I didn't know if under certain circumstances the state may see them as married even though they don't have a license (common law) and therefore wouldn't be able to deny based on an individual in that relationship/"marriage". My reason for denial is completely based on poor credit history. Thank you for you input, its greatly appreciated.

Phew! Thank you very much.

I'm currently screening applicants for our first rental property. I have a couple that applied. His credit and background is great. Hers is horrible. Can I deny the whole situation because of one applicant (I"m in California)? They applied as co-applicants. If he came back to me and said he wanted to apply alone, I don't think that she wouldn't be staying there and that would be a breach of my lease. I just don't want him to come back at me and say I unfairly denied him because she didn't qualify. Just want to be sure I'm doing things legally correct. Thanks for any input.

Thank you so much everyone. This helps.

Hello All,

I have my first rental and decided to go with Cozy. Not sure how I feel about it so far. My biggest concern is that I encourage my applicant to first check their free credit score directly at Experian to make sure it meets our minimum score required. I had one such tenant do that and she confidently applied. Yet when she ran her credit check through Cozy (who uses Experian), literally 3 hours later her credit was 39 points less than what Experian gave her directly. She showed me a screenshot to verify. Has anyone ever had this happen or does anyone know why it might happen? I'm having her get another credit check through TransUnion as the tie-breaker of sorts. I'm just concerned because a number of my applicants have come back with FICO scores pretty close to our requirements and now I'm wondering if they were really higher. I have reached out to Cozy and I am waiting to hear back. I've also encouraged her to reach out to Experian. Thanks in advance for any input.

Hello All,

So we did it! We finally became REI and have our first rental. Showed it to the first couple, who we actually liked. They went to fill out the online application via Cozy, and of course a snaffu. The gentleman is in the Navy, the woman has a new Green Card and as such can not be verified for a credit or background check. Things are taking longer with COVID and so she has pending documents, but is LEGALLY here. Cozy keeps declining her background/credit check because it can't find her based on her new SSN. Am I being scammed? Is there another option for verification? Increase the security deposit just like you might do for someone with no rental history? (I did put this clause in my qualifying criteria that I gave them). Anyone with input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!