Background Checks without SS Number
A prospective tenant with (great credit / clean background) of ours has a roommate that is here on a work permit. He has a Tax ID number but no Social Security number. Our current tenant screening company can only search criminal records by SS#.
Has anyone been about to search criminal records by a Tax Id number? We've run a background check on just his name / birthdate (which was verified by his passport) and nothing is popping up in terms of criminal history.
Thank you!
No Social Security Number...NEXT PLEASE
Nancy Neville
I had a tenant with that situation and I just said the lease had to be in the person with a SS. So, essentially, the citizen tenant with the SS number had to be the "landlord" of the other one. If the citizen didn't want that, I would have said I didn't want it either but the citizen was ok with it and it worked out fine.
Originally posted by @Account Closed:
No Social Security Number...NEXT PLEASE
Nancy Neville
An SSN stands for Social Security Number. An ITIN is a tax identification number. These numbers are issued by the Dept of Social Security and the Internal Revenue Service to facilitate an individuals transactions with government agencies. They were not created for the purpose of facilitating private commerce even though they are misused in that way, so landlords should bear in mind that they have no legitimate business demanding either of these numbers.
Originally posted by @Cole Davis:
A prospective tenant with (great credit / clean background) of ours has a roommate that is here on a work permit. He has a Tax ID number but no Social Security number. Our current tenant screening company can only search criminal records by SS#.
Has anyone been about to search criminal records by a Tax Id number? We've run a background check on just his name / birthdate (which was verified by his passport) and nothing is popping up in terms of criminal history.
Thank you!
We search criminal records by name and date of birth and do it ourselves, if your screening company can't do that - I'd change them.
Agree that criminal checks can be done without SSN, it is the credit check component that suffers. We are renting to a family with no SSN. We required a valid co-signer. So far things are working out great,t hey pay faster than our other tenants and the place looks great.
wow, it used to be that VISA holders with a work permit, a SSN would be issued for work and VISA holders that were not authorized to work would be issued a ITIN upon request in case they intended to bank or register (ie, at school, college, university, hospital, etc).
re: misuse..
banks ,employers, insurance companies and hospitals use SSN's... are they misusing SSN/ITIN's because they aren't necessarily 'government agencies'? LOL
aren't they the same number of digits? just in different spacing. ie,
SSN# 123-45-6789
ITIN/TID# 12-3456789
i could be mistaken though..
If you have a tenant with a valid visa they've already undergone a thorough background check by DHS/State before the visa was issued. You should also be able to search based on name/dob if they've been arrested since they got here. Keep in mind many jurisdictions do not always have DoB so be on the lookout for false positives.
Originally posted by @Ariel O.:
If you have a tenant with a valid visa they've already undergone a thorough background check by DHS/State before the visa was issued. You should also be able to search based on name/dob if they've been arrested since they got here. Keep in mind many jurisdictions do not always have DoB so be on the lookout for false positives.
I was just about to say this, if they can prove they have legal documentation for being in the United States 'temporarily', that is good enough for me to judge their character, since it's hard enough to obtain any type of Visa from a foreign country. I usually ask for a co-signer and haven't had any issues so far..
If they're working in the US legally, they will have a social security number. Unless I had an applicant who was a verified foreign student, I required a SSN.
http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpa...
http://www.ssa.gov/ssnumber/ss5doc.htm
In CA you can't ask someone their immigration status, but I didn't want to rent to illegal aliens, because they are a flight risk. So, if they're working and they don't have a SSN, they're an illegal alien. It's legal to say you only rent to people who have a SSN, though.
Tax ID numbers are only given to people who can't get a SSN.
So, why can't this tenant get a SSN?
If they're a foreign student here on a student visa, make them prove they're a student in good standing and ask to see their student visa in their passport.
It's true that even a legal alien won't have a credit history. But, they'll probably want to establish one. I wanted to know I could affect it, if they bailed on me. This is one of the few real leverages you have with a problem tenant. So, if they don't have a SSN, you won't have that leverage. And it's legal to require one.
I agree with the above post that if you're okay with this person, to just not put them on the lease. You can put them down as a long-term guest with your written permission which can be revoked at any time, if that person creates a problem. Leave the other tenant financially responsible. This way the tenant on the lease can kick the other one out, too, if it doesn't work out, and they don't have to break the lease and move, to get rid of the other guy.
Originally posted by @Account Closed:
wow, it used to be that VISA holders with a work permit, a SSN would be issued for work and VISA holders that were not authorized to work would be issued a ITIN upon request in case they intended to bank or register (ie, at school, college, university, hospital, etc).
re: misuse..
banks ,employers, insurance companies and hospitals use SSN's... are they misusing SSN/ITIN's because they aren't necessarily 'government agencies'? LOL
The LOL is because you've never known a system that doesn't misuse SSN's in that way.
In the UK banks and insurance companies never ask for and don't know a customers SSN equivalent (national insurance number)...... neither is it necessary for a credit check. Now I don't expect that's going to do it for you so here.
https://epic.org/privacy/ssn/testimony_0501.html
I never give mine up. (I guess maybe to the bank). How do I know you, or someone who works for you, isn't an addict or something? I don't know what your information security is like.
Good thing I'm not a renter, or an employee huh?
Originally posted by @Account Closed:
In the UK banks and insurance companies never ask for and don't know a customers SSN equivalent (national insurance number)...... neither is it necessary for a credit check. Now I don't expect that's going to do it for you so here.
Doesn't matter what does it for 'me'. I'm not a a US credit bureau, nor government agency. So far I have never ask a person or entity for their SSN or Tax ID, only their drivers license # and all vehicles' license plate #s *unless* IRS indicates I must in writing. Usually, its on their paystub though. Anyways, Your statement above implies that in the UK the SSN equivalent is NOT required, and thus that in the US it is required, to run a credit check.
Are you proposing a way to check a person's creditworthiness for renting an apartment, with the US credit bureaus, without SSN? (Or stipulating that only a government agency can thus check a persons credit without 'misusing' the person's unique identification number?!)
I'm all ears, and apologize if I've missed where you shared this method already.
Originally posted by @Account Closed:. Anyways, Your statement above implies that in the UK the SSN equivalent is NOT required, and thus that in the US it is required, to run a credit check.Are you proposing a way to check a person's creditworthiness for renting an apartment, with the US credit bureaus, without SSN? (Or stipulating that only a government agency can thus check a persons credit without 'misusing' the person's unique identification number?!)
I'm all ears, and apologize if I've missed where you shared this method already.
In the UK credit checks are based on name and address (several addresses may be needed if you've moved alot) they also look you up on the electoral roll so not being a registered voter can hurt your score. As far as I am aware the only entities with legit reason to ask for your SSN (using US equivalents) are the Social Security Dept, Employers (so you can be credited for salary deductions) and the IRS. Some recruitment systems have started asking for it as an applicant disambiguator to stop different agencies submitting the same candidate but I always give a fake number an this is misuse similar to how the misuse in the US started.
We don't do credit checks . We save the credit check to last and don't process multiple applications. We have consistently been able to make a decision on an application from the prior steps of our screening process i.e running a credit check wouldn't influence our decision. For more detail see
http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/1908...
http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/187848-rejecting-prospect-tenant-non-refundable-application-fee
Ways you can check their creditworthiness without their SSN. Tell them to pull their own credit report and bring a copy. Or ask them what you will see when you pull their credit report (they don't know you won't pull it), but as I said we haven't found the need to rely on credit reports
Originally posted by @Account Closed:
In the UK banks and insurance companies never ask for and don't know a customers SSN equivalent (national insurance number)...... neither is it necessary for a credit check. Now I don't expect that's going to do it for you so here.
I really have difficulty making comparisons between the UK and the US because we are so different. We have a language in common (which the Yanks butchered - where's the U damnit?), but that's really about it.
The problem is that although the National Insurance number and Social Security Number are equivalents, the UK never had the culture to ask for the NI everytime you conducted a transaction. Whereas the US has long since made it a cultural thing to ask for.
SSNs became a very useful tool to identify people in a population of 300m.
I calculated that in the UK there were 22 people with my name, and therefore probably about 120 in the US, so the chances of a DOB being common is actually higher than you think. If you have a common name (which I don't), then name and DOB are going to have a massive number of false positives, including middle names which aren't as varied as people think.
James,
Credit reporting in the UK uses your address history as a differentiator. I don't know how they handle a Frank Jones JR and SNR living at the same address. I would imagine at some point in their history they had different addresses and this can differentiate.
Aside from not requiring an NI/SSN number I think you will find the UK/US systems have much more in common than not.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/credit-rati...
Interesting .....financial institutions use them to gauge how profitable you will be to them
Originally posted by @Account Closed:
James,
Credit reporting in the UK uses your address history as a differentiator. I don't know how they handle a Frank Jones JR and SNR living at the same address. I would imagine at some point in their history they had different addresses and this can differentiate.
There are plenty of problems of misreporting credit checks in the UK. No idea why you think the system is perfect.
And as for the address thing, again that's another horrible thing where future tenants of a house can pick up remnants of previous tenants' bad credit.
Also, the UK is very much an exception to the rule as identity is checked in most European countries with national identity cards. The UK is possibly the only country in Europe that does not use a national identity card in any shape of form, and has actually largely rejected any idea that one should exist, probably worth remembering the No2ID campaign about 10 years ago.
The US does not use a national identity card, and so the de facto is to use SSNs (which is exactly what it wasn't designed for).
I didn't say it was perfect James and correct UK doesn't have national identity cards.
However the "de facto" solution in the US is to misuse the SSN. It creates a horrible identity theft problem, which I am surprised you are so blase about and it's not as de facto as you think.
http://www.justice.gov/opcl/social-security-number-usage
@Michele Fischer Hi Michele. Can you please share how you conducted a check on an individual without a SSN? Is there a specific vendor or website you use? Thanks!
Criminal checks aren't based on SSN, it is based on name and date of birth.
Google your state and criminal background check to see if something comes up in the $30 price range. Usually it is the state patrol. I found this for your state from the police, but not a great match: http://www.njsp.org/criminal-history-records/