Rental Property Investor · Park City, UT · Member since 2016 · 678 posts · 531 votes
After screening prospective tenants and making a selection, am I obligated to let the applicants who did NOT get approved know why they didn't make it? Not sure if it's best to "say nothing"....be vague....or tell them specific reasons. I had two applicants that invested a lot of time in the process and had to choose one. Have not yet let the applicant who didn't get the property know but need to today.
As long as you are a responsible individual and do not discriminate against the most prominent classes you can operate your business any way you choose. As a private landlord the least of your concerns should be "fair housing" regulations. Protecting your business will not get you in hot water.
A applicant would first have to file a complaint, the housing gestapo would decide if a investigation should take place and most likely, for the type of infractions most private landlords do it will never be pursued. The order you process applications is not worth the bother to be investigated.
Regarding your question about notifying applicants I give the same answer to everyone denied.. "I am sorry to have to inform you but you have not been accepted as a tenant."
That answer gives them nothing to complain about and if they ask why I simply say it is not my policy to provide that information.
As with screening a standard policy is mandatory and the less the information you provide the less they have to complain about. It is not a applicants business to know how I screen or determine who does and who does not meet MY requirements. They may have been rejected because I did not like their personality.
Mom and Pop may feel obligated to give a reason and sincerely apologise for not being able to accept the applicant as a tenant but professional landlords know better and do not risk or waste there their time justifying their screening process.
Obviously the majority of landlords are not writing to tell every applicant why they have been denied. As Greg points out, providing explicit reasons, whether true or false for applicant rejection, just provides potential fodder for an applicant complaint. I think John needs to understand the difference between a competent business/legal decision what he feels is polite.
Hate to say this to you, but you truly missed the point of responding to this post.
We aren’t wondering what the equal housing law states lol. That’s been a round forever and 99.99 percent of people follow it. Color or religion doesn’t matter to 99.99 percent of landlords
Landlords want solid tenants. Good paying tenants. They could be black or pale white. Doesn’t change a landlords mind.
The man who originally started the thread was wondering what’s the best way to tell multiple APPLICANTS they aren’t accepted
- you are incorrect about
Your “ application laws “ there is no such thing. You can process 200 applications if you want, but yes, there can ONLY BE ONE SELECTED OBVIOUSLY. There is nothing illegal about that.
FIRST COME FIRST SERVE HAS FAILED THOUSANDS OF LANDLORDS and becomes an Unethical business practice, Federal law states millions of things, However, each STATE is what possesses the power of how to run your landlording business.
- Accept as many applicants as you want, it is totally legal, Process all applications, then select the MOST qualified. simple.
first come first serve doesnt exist in the NBA, NFL, NCAA, Any job, Any career, Any presidential Election, Any politcal office. it simply does not exist.
"We would like to inform you that we regret to let you know that your application has not been approved. The decision was made based on the following reasons:
1) You did not provide enough information about yourself, your current or previous landlords, and any rental references; 2) Your income is below our minimum requirement; 3) Some of the items in your credit report are too recent for us to assess their significance when they were issued six months ago.
We hope these points will help when applying next time around!"