College kids living at home with Parents
New York, NY · Member since 2016 · 104 posts · 22 votes
I have an applicant who has an college age child living at home during the pandemic while college is remote. They said the child would move back to college once its in person again. My policy is typically anyone over the age of 18 must apply and be on the lease. How have others been handling this? What have other done in the past when a college kid comes home for the summer and lives in one of your rented units with their parents.
For a multi-family property, I at least run a criminal background check for any adult who has moved in. Even if it is an 18-year-old student and child of the main tenant. Because 18-year-olds (and younger) can certainly commit violent felonies, yet still get off on probation or a short jail term. Unlikely, yes. But possible, also yes.
In my eyes, criminal background checks...because I run them...are an implied promise I make to my multi-family tenants that the tenants around them do not have a violent criminal record.
There needs to be a line somewhere and since 18 is a legal adult, then 18 is my line also.
However, for someone who has already been a good tenant, overall I'd be pretty lenient with the other aspects of the background check for their adult children who are still fairly young and home from college.
Hi Brady!
It makes sense that your typical policy is to include anyone over the age of 18 on the lease as well, but I'm sure there are a few exceptions to this that you've maybe encountered already or might again.
It seems like this is a situation where the 18 year old should be considered as a dependent, therefore excluded from the lease. Unless laws have changed that I'm simply not up to speed on yet, a full time college student up to the age of 24 is still a dependent, an 18 year old student who lives with the parent at least six months of the year- these both fit the situation you're describing.
I'm not sure how others usually go about this, but from a landlords point of view, it seems like if this person age 24 or younger, but older than 18, is a full time student, still able to be claimed on taxes as a dependent (often still under parent's health insurance and car insurance as well) it seems maybe not so necessary to include them on the lease as well.
I can say personally there might be cases too where this seems a bit unnecessary - for example; (while I'm not a renter) I really wouldn't want my 18 year son on a lease I was signing, even as he is with me year round, as he attends a local university on an academic scholarship. He has medically diagnosed disabilities and this would really not be reasonable to ask/expect of him. I say this as you may run into situations where a legal dependent far above age 18 would likely still be excluded from the lease for various reasons.
I maybe am not seeing what the benefit would be to having an 18 year old on the lease as there is zero to minimal credit history to pull from, usually never any long term employment history, and the idea of having the 18 year old on the line for something such as damages or missed payments seems (at least for most 18 years old's!) would be like trying to squeeze blood from a turnip - it simply isn't there.
It seems that in most cases this would simply not be a necessary thing to do. There are however those renters who might see this as an opportunity for their child to begin to establish reported rental credit history and see it as a benefit.
So to recap, I suppose I could see it from both sides, but overall say its seems unnecessary in this case- or for 'home bound' during summer break only college students (who are already exhibiting responsibility enough {in most cases} to be on a continued education path, having more of a 'merit' based stay in the rental it seems) to be on the lease as well as parents.
At the end of the day, it's likely that anything you ever sought from the lease holder (rent due, damages, etc) would be coming from the parent's end anyway it seems = )
Hope that helps!
I have a tenant who has a daughter who is 18 but junior in highshool who I verified as usual. When it was time to sign the lease she asked for her daughter not to have to sign which was fair enough I was mostly just looking for a criminal history. This seemed good enough and the tenant had very high credit and income so I let it slide. If I saw the parents as a greater risk I may have insisted on it. I probably would t want my high school age son on a lease either but if they are going to be financially responsible or are not in school and should be I would have them sign.
For a multi-family property, I at least run a criminal background check for any adult who has moved in. Even if it is an 18-year-old student and child of the main tenant. Because 18-year-olds (and younger) can certainly commit violent felonies, yet still get off on probation or a short jail term. Unlikely, yes. But possible, also yes.
In my eyes, criminal background checks...because I run them...are an implied promise I make to my multi-family tenants that the tenants around them do not have a violent criminal record.
There needs to be a line somewhere and since 18 is a legal adult, then 18 is my line also.
However, for someone who has already been a good tenant, overall I'd be pretty lenient with the other aspects of the background check for their adult children who are still fairly young and home from college.
Thanks @Jennifer T. @Anna Laud and @Adam Martin. All great advice