Investor · Denver & South Metro · Member since 2018 · 24 posts · 11 votes
I have had 2 incidents recently that potential Tenant refuse to give out SSN before signing Lease. Rental property is minimal $750k assess, Landlord feels more comfortable to have Tenant SSNs on file to protect themselves.
What would you do in this situation if you are a landlord?
I have had 2 incidents recently that potential Tenant refuse to give out SSN before signing Lease. Rental property is minimal $750k assess, Landlord feels more comfortable to have Tenant SSNs on file to protect themselves.
What would you do in this situation if you are a landlord?
Move on, NOBODY gets in without a BG check HIRE A PM CO, PLEASE ,
I have had 2 incidents recently that potential Tenant refuse to give out SSN before signing Lease. Rental property is minimal $750k assess, Landlord feels more comfortable to have Tenant SSNs on file to protect themselves.
What would you do in this situation if you are a landlord?
Move on, NOBODY gets in without a BG check HIRE A PM CO, PLEASE ,
Don’t you want/need the SSN for a decent background check and income verification?
What are these applicants offering to make up for being less desirable than other tenants? Are they offering more rent?
Are they willing to provide a few months of bank statements and last years tax return showing matching income?
Maybe their SSN is going to show something you might illegally discriminate against when found out so they want the approval first? (Criminal record or evictions or something?) I guess IMHO they’d have to be waaaay better applicants than anyone else to be considered.
Ps. This is something your PM should be weeding out. If you don’t have a PM that’s why these people are applying for your place, they can’t get in a place where professionals manage it.
I have had 2 incidents recently that potential Tenant refuse to give out SSN before signing Lease. Rental property is minimal $750k assess, Landlord feels more comfortable to have Tenant SSNs on file to protect themselves.
What would you do in this situation if you are a landlord?
Move on, NOBODY gets in without a BG check HIRE A PM CO, PLEASE ,
I have had 2 incidents recently that potential Tenant refuse to give out SSN before signing Lease. Rental property is minimal $750k assess, Landlord feels more comfortable to have Tenant SSNs on file to protect themselves.
What would you do in this situation if you are a landlord?
Move on, NOBODY gets in without a BG check HIRE A PM CO, PLEASE ,
With identity theft I can understand being concerned with protecting your SSN... but this info is required to properly screen tenants.... background check, credit history, work history, income verification etc etc.
So if they wont provide it to get those things... PASS.... and move on
Nowadays with Zillow and or other 3rd parties to provide credit and background check you don’t need their SSNs anymore, but we want to have their SSN on file in case things go wrong….
We already have a BG check from Zillow, just wanted SSN on file to protect ourselves
HOW do you run a BG check without a SS # ?
Zillow and Rentprep are the ones I have used but I'm sure most of them are this way. The tenant fills out their information online including their SSN for the company to run the check however as a landlord you do not get the SSN from the screening company just the background check. I don't have the SSN from any of my tenants due to this but I do have a copy of their Drivers License number which I feel is good enough. I'm curious though from someone who has experience needing to collect is the SSN more helpful than the Drivers License number. From my understanding if you do have their SSN there are extra safeguards you need to keep them safe but I barely looked into it.
We already have a BG check from Zillow, just wanted SSN on file to protect ourselves
exactly, and we wanted that xtra protection, as this last applicant is from out of state
HOW do you run a BG check without a SS # ?
Zillow and Rentprep are the ones I have used but I'm sure most of them are this way. The tenant fills out their information online including their SSN for the company to run the check however as a landlord you do not get the SSN from the screening company just the background check. I don't have the SSN from any of my tenants due to this but I do have a copy of their Drivers License number which I feel is good enough. I'm curious though from someone who has experience needing to collect is the SSN more helpful than the Drivers License number. From my understanding if you do have their SSN there are extra safeguards you need to keep them safe but I barely looked into it.
I have had 2 incidents recently that potential Tenant refuse to give out SSN before signing Lease. Rental property is minimal $750k assess, Landlord feels more comfortable to have Tenant SSNs on file to protect themselves.
What would you do in this situation if you are a landlord?
Did these potential tenants pass your back ground checks or did they refuse to give you their SSN to do the checks? We use a third party to preform our back ground checks. Only if a potential tenant passes and we want them to sign a lease do we start the process. The lease goes out for esigning and they have to give their SSN before we finalize the lease. If they don't we reject them and move on to the next potential tenant.
I have had 2 incidents recently that potential Tenant refuse to give out SSN before signing Lease. Rental property is minimal $750k assess, Landlord feels more comfortable to have Tenant SSNs on file to protect themselves.
What would you do in this situation if you are a landlord?
Did these potential tenants pass your back ground checks or did they refuse to give you their SSN to do the checks? We use a third party to preform our back ground checks. Only if a potential tenant passes and we want them to sign a lease do we start the process. The lease goes out for esigning and they have to give their SSN before we finalize the lease. If they don't we reject them and move on to the next potential tenant.
my apology for not being clear, we had the background check, they seem to be okay, -- they are self employed but income looks good although I haven't verify because they hav't agreed to supply SSN before lease signing.
On top of BG check we require Tenant provide SSN for extra protection, never had a problem with Tenants before till recently, not sure it has anything to do with the new law in CO
Websites like Zillow are not always accurate and can easily be manipulated to tell you what whatever score they want. I trusted only Zillow before and got some scammer who used my property as a brothel / casino.
Not trusting you enough to provide SSN number is a red flag.
@Cindy B. If your rental is in Denver, I would strongly encourage you to stop using Zillow to screen your applicants. The laws have changed and if you get a section 8 prospect (which you must accept), landlords are not permitted to do a credit check on them. Zillow and other large screeners are not able to piece-meal the background screening information to keep landlords in compliance. With that said, I agree with the others that if they don't want thier SSN collected, then I would send them down the road.
@Cindy B. If your rental is in Denver, I would strongly encourage you to stop using Zillow to screen your applicants. The laws have changed and if you get a section 8 prospect (which you must accept), landlords are not permitted to do a credit check on them. Zillow and other large screeners are not able to piece-meal the background screening information to keep landlords in compliance. With that said, I agree with the others that if they don't want their SSN collected, then I would send them down the road.
WTF kind of non-sense is that? It's illegal to run a credit check on someone that you're going to turn over an asset worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to? Are you allowed to sue them when they destroy it (because you couldn't check if they had had done that before)? Is this actually true?
@Cindy B. If your rental is in Denver, I would strongly encourage you to stop using Zillow to screen your applicants. The laws have changed and if you get a section 8 prospect (which you must accept), landlords are not permitted to do a credit check on them. Zillow and other large screeners are not able to piece-meal the background screening information to keep landlords in compliance. With that said, I agree with the others that if they don't want thier SSN collected, then I would send them down the road.
Not familiar with section 8, but it does feel that they can trust Zillow but they can’t trust us… it’s a business decision but I can’t help to think it’s a bit of personal, thanks for your feedback
Websites like Zillow are not always accurate and can easily be manipulated to tell you what whatever score they want. I trusted only Zillow before and got some scammer who used my property as a brothel / casino.
Not trusting you enough to provide SSN number is a red flag.
Good to know, I wasn’t aware that’s easily manipulated
@Cindy B. If your rental is in Denver, I would strongly encourage you to stop using Zillow to screen your applicants. The laws have changed and if you get a section 8 prospect (which you must accept), landlords are not permitted to do a credit check on them. Zillow and other large screeners are not able to piece-meal the background screening information to keep landlords in compliance. With that said, I agree with the others that if they don't want their SSN collected, then I would send them down the road.
WTF kind of non-sense is that? It's illegal to run a credit check on someone that you're going to turn over an asset worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to? Are you allowed to sue them when they destroy it (because you couldn't check if they had had done that before)? Is this actually true?
Yep! It's insane. Even our attorneys think so and they think this is just the tip of the iceberg.
@Cindy B. If your rental is in Denver, I would strongly encourage you to stop using Zillow to screen your applicants. The laws have changed and if you get a section 8 prospect (which you must accept), landlords are not permitted to do a credit check on them. Zillow and other large screeners are not able to piece-meal the background screening information to keep landlords in compliance. With that said, I agree with the others that if they don't want thier SSN collected, then I would send them down the road.
This comment makes it sound like everyone has to accept every section 8 tenant now, which is not true. Source of income is now a protected status in the fair housing act, meaning you can’t deny because the applicant plans to use housing vouchers to pay rent, but that doesn’t mean you have to rent to them. You can still deny them for other (legal) reasons that they don’t meet your criteria, or go with a more qualified applicant instead. Also many landlords are exempt from the source of income rule such as if you’re self managing/ not using a broker, live in the property, have less than 5 rentals, etc. People should know the law and whether or not it even applies to them before jumping to conclusions.