Rental Property Investor · Trabuco Canyon, CA · Member since 2014 · 134 posts · 78 votes
I have a person that is on a lot of psychiatric drugs. Or at least he used to be but now for one reason or another refuses to take them. He even tried to burn down my building while attempting to kill himself. See my other post on that.
How can you legally prevent something like that from happening again? Can I legally ask people to list all the medications they are on as part of their rental application?
Most of the people seems to be OK all the way until they decide to get a gun and start shooting people at the movie theaters.
I had an applicant like that who was on disability (age 33) with a great credit. He didn't look sick at all so I was wondering what his disability was. I lucked with him out because his criminal report showed that up until 6 months ago he was serving 11 years of a 13 years sentence for assault and battery of his wife (including throwing acid at her face). We have a strict no-eviction and no criminal background policy at my place.
Don be stingy. Save yourself potential troubles and run criminal background check on your future tenants.
Investor and CPA · Arvada, CO · Member since 2015 · 2k+ posts · 3k+ votes
11y
The short answer - no, you can't ask for a list of medications. That's an unmitigated violation of privacy.
I could go off on a rant here about how even people who sell firearms aren't allowed to ask that question and there's no way to check for the ticking time bombs that are the movie theater, shopping mall, school, you-name-it shooters.
Attorney · Winchester, VA · Member since 2015 · 726 posts · 387 votes
11y
Be extremely careful when dealing with individuals under a disability, such a mental disorder. If you have concerns about your ability under California and Federal Law to base rental decision on these characteristics, immediately seek the advice of a local attorney. Generally speaking, this would be frowned upon.