All Forum Posts by: Sarah A.

@Rob D. — thanks for your thoughts. Child support as income is shaky; I agree. 

My question was whether or not to decline before even processing the application since I already had enough red flags to know I didn’t want to rent to the person. A local prop mger friend gave me some good advice as well: ALWAYS process a submitted application (so they can’t accuse me of rejecting based on some unfair motive). If you know you don’t want to rent to someone, save yourself some time by going straight to the part of the application that will give you enough info to reject, usually the credit report or rental history. 

So that’s what I did. And it turned out well. 

I'm going to process the application fully. I've decided it's safer to have quantifiable proof, which shouldn't be hard to find once I start digging. And it’s a good idea to look over the Landlord-Tenant Act again (I’m in TN). Thanks for the feedback! 

@Megan Phillips , @Thomas S. -- Great wording suggestions! I agree that I should be able to decline for any reason, as long as I'm consistent (yes, I reject all freeloading boyfriend situations, Lol) and it's not discrimination of a protected class. I just needed some verbiage to minimize encouraging lawsuit-happy types. Thank you! 

Still welcoming any other thoughts/feedback. :) 

@John Underwood -- That's why I don't want to rent her, but getting sued would probably be worse. I need some verbiage. 

@Deborah Burian -- My evidence is a gut feeling plus what she posted on Facebook, so not terribly quantifiable. Plus I just want to wait for a very strong applicant. I'm willing to wait as long as it takes. We've had excellent tenants even in this house. 

6 things: 

income (yes, barely b/c of child support)

good character (no)

clean and tidy living habits (I don't know)

good financial habits (I don't know)

willingness to pay online (yes)

no smoking (yes) 

We have a house that is harder to rent than our others. It's very clean and in good repair and priced well for our market, but it's older and has some odd features and it's not in the best area. Plus it's a slower rental season right now. 

Anyway, I only have one applicant, and I don't want to rent to this person. It's a character issue; I have evidence she's lying about how much her boyfriend would be there. 

I just want to cut and run and wait for the right one. What can I do/say? Do I have to spend hours processing the application when I already know I don't want to rent to this person? 

This one-applicant-at-a-time scenario could happen a lot with this house, so we need a plan. Thanks in advance! 

I've had many applicants who were qualified on paper but just didn't seem trustworthy, so my qualification method is more character-based. In fact, we are not in the habit of running a credit and background check. I try to spend as much in-person time as possible with applicants and get them talking (on the phone, at showings). I put the burden on them to show me they're trustworthy. This may seem risky, but it works. We're getting the best tenants yet in our 13 years of landlording 11 units. 

However, I ran into a problem recently: When I sought to return the application fee to a "qualified" applicant (solid rental history and sufficient income), she accused me of rejecting her because of race. (Not true--I ended up renting to someone of her race.) There were 7 applicants in all, and I only processed 2, which were the ones I was leaning toward based on face time with them. I returned the application fees to everyone but the one I chose, saying I decided to rent to someone else. 

My question: Is what I did legal? Can I tell an applicant that the qualifications are based mostly on income and rental history, but also character? I mean, it should be legal. This is my house that I bought and take care of and want kept nice. 

The rental market is so hot here, and I get so many applications, that I could wreck myself processing them all, even when I know full well that I won't rent to many of the people applying because I have a better applicant.