Tenant Prospects and want me to make exceptions

[Deisy P.]

I listed my unit for rent. I repeatedly mentioned a 600 credit score. The prospect emails me back to tell me about their hardships. They mention family, health, they can pay upfront but how can I let them down? The credit is important to me because of all previous exceptions I've made before.

[Cassi Justiz]

If you are set on a 600 credit score, tell the applicant that you aren't able to make exceptions because your "attorney" says you have to apply your criteria equally to every applicant. They don't have to know that the "attorney" advising you is HUD. If you have written criteria and you don't apply that criteria equally to all applicants, then you could be asking for a fair housing issues to come up.

I personally require "favorable" credit history instead of a minimum credit score. There are some great tenants with not so great credit, so I don't want to get into a position where I don't have at least some flexibility to use personal judgement here.