State Specific Question About: OREGON (OR)

Screening tenants is a very serious affair. If you don't know what you are doing, you are looking at a discrimination law suit and/or fines. You need to read up on this and write down (like every landlord should, but don't) your criteria. For example:

I have a 1 bedroom apartment and I want:

a) someone with a minimum of 3 times the monthly rent

b) on the job for at least a year

c) around $3000 to $5000 in the bank (savings)

d) little debt with no more than $250 a month to service debt. If more, income must be greater.

e) a FICO score over 700.

I ask the applicant to bring the application with:

a) State Id

b) two pay stubs

c) copy of a bank statement

No pets.

If after receiving the application and review, I can reject person(s) without running their credit and won't collect a processing fee. If the application and documents look good, I'll take the processing fee and run the credit -- getting back go them within 1 to 2 days.

Good morning Jen... and I'd suggest the process you use is fine.... as you are :

1. using the same process for everyone

2. you are getting the base information from the 3rd party screening co and credit bureaus and then continuing to more detail as Robert suggested..

A few years ago I asked for and received this from HUD,the folks who administer fair housing in Or.. and the Fair housing council of OR.

RENTING TO THE FIRST QUALIFIED APPLICANT

Fair Housing Council of Oregon

'Although we strongly recommend that landlords accept the first qualified applicant, fair housing law does not require this'.

'Landlords are allowed to adopt whatever objective method of picking a qualified applicant they want, but selecting the first qualified applicant is one of the best practices available for protection from a fair housing complaint'.

'Landlords have the liberty of accepting a group of applications and weeding through them for the one they like best. '

Jen, certainly you can call the Fair Housing Council as well

I inform them of the requirements upfront to get an idea as to whether they will likely qualify first. Then they decide whether or not to pay the criminal/credit screening fee because I don't like to see anyone lose $50.00.

You're a little vague as to why you don't want to rent to her, only stating that you are "inclined not to go ahead with her" and "the more we talk about her the less we are excited about her."

What about her doesn't meet your screening criteria?

Or are you basing this on a feeling?

It's really not clear from your post as to whether she has even filled out an application.

I do suggest asking the questions first (which everyone who wishes to apply does by filling out an application). If it appears from their answers that they may meet your minimum criteria, THEN run the credit, eviction and background checks along with verifying the answers to their questions.

If you are inclined not to rent to someone because their answers to your questions do not meet your criteria, then no, it is not necessary to go to step two and run the reports. For example; if it is clear from their initial responses on my application, that they do not make the amount of income required to rent the home, I can let them know that they do not meet the income requirements. It is not necessary to run a credit check.

What you're doing is not wrong per se, but there are advantages to doing the credit report last.

First, I always collect an application fee. All of our general criteria are posted on our website with links all over the place. If anyone asks, "What do you look for?" I direct them to our site. Then it's up to THEM to decide to apply and pay the fee or not.

Now I have fee in hand. I have several "deal breaker" questions on my application including: 1) ever been evicted? 2) convicted of a felony, if yes, what was the charge? 3) monthly income and sources? These are easy to review and if any of them don't meet my criteria I get to keep the fee while only having spent about 2-3 minutes glancing over the application. It is perfectly legal to deny someone who has insufficient income, or is a violent felon, or who has been evicted.

If they pass "round 1" (the quick glance), I move on to round 2....verifying employment, pulling background off Missouri CaseNet, a free site for Missourians, verifying LL refs, checking their Facebook page/social media profile. This takes me about 30 minutes but I can usually get a pretty good idea if it's going to work or not. If not, I keep the fee.

If they pass "round 2" (the references), then the last thing I do is pull credit. This is my only "hard cost" where I have to pay ($10). By this time, I've weeded out almost all the bad apples for various legal reasons.

This method saves me time. I don't care if someone has a 700 credit score if they were evicted for sneaking in a pit bull. And it keeps more app fees in my pocket due to fewer expenses pulling credit report.

Yes, I was being vague. There are a couple of things that raised a few red flags. First, she is REALLY pushy. She wanted to get us to tell her how to get first in line so she would get the place. We assured her she had the same chance as all the applicants at that point (before going over an application to rent and before running a credit/background check). She has two teenage girls. I know you can't deny someone because they have children, but teenagers can really rack up the water bills, and they might be noisy (the other tenants are extremely quiet). Still, we wouldn't deny her because of the girls. She has a bankruptcy, which we don't like but could overlook if her income is very good and credit doesn't look bad otherwise (income to debt ratio, late payments or non-payment of debt, etc.) She wanted to repaint the place (it's white) and seemed impatient about our wanting to discuss that before considering it. She wants us to hold the apartment for a month while she gives 30 days' notice to her current landlord (we're not going to do that unless she pays the rent), but still asked again. She strikes us as a person who will be a lot of work as a tenant. Our other tenants (this is a 4-plex) are long-term, very happy tenants who love where they live. We seldom hear from them unless there is an appliance issue, and when we ask how things are going when we see them we hear "We LOVE it here!"

So, all in all, she isn't the favorite person we have in the lineup.

When we first meet with them to show the apartment,I give them a detailed paper that outlines our application and screening process, another that outlines the terms of the rental agreement, and then an application to rent. They take those home with them and read them. If they want to apply, they fill the application out and scan it back to me. We don't charge a fee to apply. The application gives some initial information, but isn't as detailed as the rental agreement. Then we run a credit check (they pay TransUnion $25 and it sends us the info). If we like what we've seen so far, then they fill out the rental agreement.

If we find any discrepancies that's immediate reason to not go forward. When I ran a background check on someone last week, it revealed 1) too much debt to income and 2)a conviction against him for theft. TransUnion gave a low recommend and we used them to send him a denial. Easy decision. I'm sure he wasn't surprised.

I just looked back over the process we used with our last tenants we brought in (3 and 4 years ago). We used the same process. The only difference was that we got really, really lucky and got two perfect tenants right off the bat, so didn't have to weed through a bunch of applicants.

You can't deny someone based on their personality, and you certainly can't deny them because of children.

You mention the bankruptcy you "didn't like" but it "may be OK' if she has good income and credit isn't bad? That's really wishy-washy. Approaching prospects this way will drive you nuts.

You need specific, stated criteria that you give all prospects before they spend the time and money to complete a rental application. Based on hard numbers. FICO score must be ____ or better, debt to income ratio ___ or less, gross monthly income ____ or more. Etc.

You should have made it clear at the showing that NO changes would be made to the property - period.

I would want a more solid reason to deny her. "Being pushy" is too vague if she tried to make waves later.

If she is being so pushy, there is a probably a (bad) reason for it and it will come out when you run her application.

If you're going to be taking people with bankruptcy make sure it has been discharged.