Birmingplumb, if you can’t get a good tenant who actually IS who they claim they are by the time school starts and you don’t plan to occupy the property in the future, why don’t you consider putting it on the market?
May I also suggest insisting on a middle initial or middle name of your applicant if they have not provided one and also entering the SSNs your prospective tenants put on their apps on the Social Security Death Index?
This is to see if they “borrowed” a SSN from a decedent.
In addition, MANY males who have fouled up their credit and have the same name as their father (exc poss a middle initial) are using their (dead or alive) father’s name and SSN for credit purposes. This is one of the most common “mix-ups??” at the three major credit bureaus :=0
Also try intelius.com, plugging in the names and purported state your prospective tenants list they are from on their apps:
to determine who their (purported) family members are and their (purported) last (up to six) cities/towns they lived in. For a small fee you can obtain much more information. Match those addresses with the addresses they claim on their application to have lived at. With a “day pass,” you can enter info from multiple applications in a 24-hr time period.
I wouldn’t waste another minute with a fraudulent application except to respond to the applicant if they call you that their credit report wasn’t up to your specifications or you were unable to run their credit report because they didn’t provide you with enough (or the correct) information. If they know they were trying to pretend to be someone else or the LL(s) they listed on their app are actually “friends” and/or relatives and can’t provide you with any more info, they will go away quietly.
In the absence of age-restricted CC&R’s, bad/insufficient credit, being an unemancipated minor and bad landlord refs are the ONLY reasons you can legally turn a prospective tenant away.
