Rental Property Investor · Pittsburgh, PA · Member since 2016 · 60 posts · 38 votes
Buckle up. You can’t make this stuff up.
We have an applicant who had the following 4 charges expunged from her record:
-aggregated assault
-burglary
-criminal attempt - CRIMINAL HOMICIDE
-conspiracy- aggravated assault
Sounds like a model citizen, right?
Needless to say, we don’t want to rent to her. Her application otherwise checks out (credit score, income, etc) so we can’t deny her on anything else. So how can we legally deny her, because she wasn’t convicted of those crimes (and she has the expungement letter).
Thanks!
Investor · Narragansett, RI · Member since 2013 · 8k+ posts · 4k+ votes
8y
You have to have another reason to reject her. Sounds to me like she was charged, not convicted, charges were not reduced but dismissed, and record was expunged. Was this all at one timepoint and how long ago? I am not saying it is true here but not every criminal is arrested and not everyone ever arrested is a criminal. I would consider she has brought it up and go from there.
Investor · Narragansett, RI · Member since 2013 · 8k+ posts · 4k+ votes
8y
- sorry wasnt done. You can always find something to deny on or go with a different availabilty date/better qualified applicant. Except for the burgulary if it is on one date I would think it could be a domestic dispute.
Keep taking applications and you will find a better one. When you do select a applicant, better or not, you simply tell all the rest that their application has not been selected and the unit has been filled.
You do have that right to reject on a feeling, appearance, attitude etc.
We were able to deny on income requirement (could not verify her income) so we dodged that one! Looking at her application, we found other things that were very misleading - including her mom who was the one who submitted the application, kept checking in on the application, and kept referring to it as "her" application, though everything was in the daughter's name (with the expunged charges).