JIMHO, I’d take my lease, the bounced check to a lawyer and see if there’s an effective out, such as lease goes into effect when rent and security is paid (which it hasn’t been) and cancel the contract.

Again, JIMHO, bouncing the move in money is a non-starter.

Lease is invalid without initial payment. You dodged a bullet. Tear up the lease, tell the nice folks to take their nice selves elsewhere. Not your problem. If they can’t get the initial payment right, what makes you think they’ll pay on time in future and you won’t have problems with rubber checks?

At the very least, demand a few months up front to give you time to evict them if they make a habit of not paying.

Yes, it’s safe. Just create a secondary account for deposits. I had my tenant running to the bank every month and depositing a check herself for years — I just gave her 12 deposit slips with the lease.

I second those saying that the lease is invalid. Transaction is pending the completion of the security deposit – which did not occur in a timely manner.

Did you run a credit check on these people? I would just move on to the next potential tenant. Bouncing on the first transaction is not a good idea, shows a potentially poor tenant – who you will have to be continually chasing down for rent. If this is in California – avoid this person. They can play the declare bankruptcy/non-appearance game to make eviction for non-payment nearly impossible.

Not safe to give bank account number (add routing number and guess at most recent check number – and forge away your account). Besides, if they already had the cash – the security deposit would not have bounced. That means that mentioning ‘direct deposit’ is a red herring.

In this hot rental market, WHY would you even consider these sub-standard renters?

They are already working you over by making you hustle to fix a problem they created. Don’t expect this to change. Once they get the keys, they have possession and all the rights our lovely state confers to renters.

If these are friends-of-family or someone you just must rent to as a personal favor to Uncle Bob, then do yourself a favor and consider doing month-to-month which will at least give you some eviction leverage if they don’t pay the rent.

I’d highly recommend that you consider joining the San Diego County Apartment Association, as they provide training on tenant screening.

[quote=plm]No credit check, there was some issue where it couldn’t be done. But did verify employment.

Will provide cash when they move in so security deposit will not be an issue.

Not sure rental market is hot or maybe its the time of the year now. After initial surge of around 20 people, it slowed down quite a bit.

I know I should treat this as a business but I think its good to give nice people a second chance.[/quote]

Being nice versus possibly getting screwed are completely different issues.

What you should do is require a credit check now. There’s absolutely no reason why you can’t do a credit check it’s easy with Experian tenant check. They pay for it, they keep the record, and they can’t complain about giving you their SSN because the way it works, they won’t… AND since it’s all through experian, they can’t fudge the actual credit report, unlike a paper copy (which some people do.)….

https://connect.experian.com/credit-check/tenant-credit-check.html

Also, you keep saying they will pay cash when they move in… Ugh… I hope you meant…They will pay cash BEFORE they move in.. There’s no reason why you can’t demand for all the payment upfront before they actually move in. And given their track record already, i think it’s perfectly reasonable to.

No money, no credit check, no lease. And the last you should be worrying about is being able to rent out the place. Even if rental is softening, it’s much better you have it vacant, versus letting someone live there for free and going through eviction if it gets to that.

Hopefully we’re all wrong about this, but imho you are way too trusting. Im not even that trusting, and people tell me I get suckered in all the time.

I have a colleague that rented a place to a professional in CarmelV. There couldn’t get payment on the deposit from a check, to the guy brings cash for the deposit and first month rent…Now it’s the 3rd month, and the person stopped paying after the initial cash deposit+1st month rent.

Sorry, this sounds like a case in which it would make sense if you turn this property over to a property manager. If you are having trouble saying “no” before the move in, I can’t imagine what predicament they are going to put you in the moment they pay you late, or don’t pay you at all. And then you’re going to be posting here asking advice for “how do I deal with a difficult tenant that stopped paying”….If you can’t firmly tell your tenant “you are late paying, you owe me a late fee” or “pay be cash before moving in plus I’m going to pull your credit now”, you owe it to yourself to find a property manager that has no problem doing that. Plus, a tenant is much more likely to abide if they know they are dealing with a property manager with experience versus a mom/pop operation that is sort of “nice” and wishy-washy in enforcing basic payment/rent terms. It’s just how it works.

I have one tenant that use to send it rent late all the time. And every single time I gave him a warning about a late fee. Finally I got fed up with it and started enforcing the late fee. Guy hasn’t been late since.

And how the hell do you bounce a check? Are people really living by a shoestring that they can’t cut a rent check if they miss one payroll week? That too should be a red flag.