All Forum Posts by: Aaron Linden

To anyone who may find this thread one day, I will follow up with the rest of the story.

It turns out this guy was a professional tenant. When I declined him due to the eviction he got pretty belligerent and insisted it was not true and that he would sue me for discriminating against him. I pulled in my lawyer and we formulated a series of statements to prevent this from happening and everything (so far) has turned out well.

Moral of the story: This guy was a really nice guy when I met him. Set up written, non-discriminatory screening criterion and stick to it! Then DO YOUR SCREENING. Trust but verify. This could have turned into a hot mess had I not known the law and followed it to a T. Furthermore, this guy has been evicted several times. Make sure you are checking court records in addition to your background check as sometimes these do not all show up in the report.

To be clear, the advice given in this thread is great and likely helped me out as I could refer back to lying on the application as reason to deny as well and maintaining the proper documentation for this type of person is likely to pay off in the end.

I went ahead and gave him an application and validated the eviction against him. What is more is that he lied about his income on the application as well. I guess this is why we put these processes in place! Thank you all for your feedback!

@Michael Noto My process is to pre-screen with phone/text/email questions and eviction is one of them. He said he did not have an eviction when asked the question. Furthermore, he said he has no evictions when he filled out the app and turned it in yesterday. I may start taking an application fee. Typically I screen the app for free and do not charge them until I am ready for the background/credit check.

@Mike H. I have the eviction question on the app, it is no problem to deny him based on this.

@Ola Dantis Thank you for the compliment and I agree with your assessment. It is simple enough to show he has an eviction and also that he lied on the application. 

@Brandon Hicks I like your strategy, and I appreciate you sharing it. I have been approaching it from the standpoint of: the more applications I give out, the more people I need to decline, and the more people who get upset over being declined. Have you ever had problems with that?

@Amy Beth Thank you for your input!

@Brian Adzadi This is where my head was at, just wanted to make sure I was not out in the weeds thinking this though. Thank you for your help!

Hey BP,

I showed one of my rentals last night to a person who got through my pre-screening which includes asking if the person has had an eviction to which he replied, "Never". I did a quick search on his name and address and found he has a couple of evictions and other small claims, looks to me like a professional tenant or one in the making.

In practice, what is the best way to handle this? Should I allow him to apply and send him an application and then deny him or deny giving him an application on grounds he has an eviction? I am looking to avoid falling into some obscure legal trap he could use here (if any).

Thank you for your input!

Aaron

@Lucas Stringfield you got it man! I hope it works out for you!

Lucas Stringfield Have you asked if they would give you a business line of credit to your business backed by the equity in this particular home?

Mike H. Nailed what I was thinking. I’ll also add that when you are starting out there is generally a confidence issue. Other than asking around it is difficult to know if you did the right thing until you are committed. The other difficult part I have is working full time and doing rehabs myself. Now I am thankful I have the ability to do the rehab myself and it is a competitive advantage for sure but man is it exhausting over time.

I can’t tag Vishal for some reason so hopefully you see this. It sounds like you are on MLK drive between 20 and Colfax. Marion turns into MLK south of 20. So my advice is predicated on that. This is a difficult area to give advice on. It is in general not a bad area BUT just to the north and west of there it isn’t so nice so be careful. I think your rents are pretty close and taxes maybe 100-150 too low. I also think this area has a possibility for gentrification as South Bend gentrifies. This decision depends highly on what your risk tolerance is and how you will manage it.

Do you have any investors meeting in your area like a REIA? If so, join those groups and talk and be yourself, people will respond. If not just go out to a coffee shop and talk to people and talk about your interests. Eventually you will find people who are like minded. BP is also a great place!