Alice called me just in time. From time to time she calls, needing my consultation about how to handle issues with her rental properties. This time she almost got sucked into a bad tenant’s scam. Fortunately, she had the sense to realize that there was something about this applicant that smelled like three-day-old fish.
On paper he looked good. After all, earning $98,000 a year with the tax returns to prove it meant he would probably be able to pay the $1400 a month rent. But, as is often the case in situations such as these, it was too good to be true. The first clue should have been the rental application he filled out.
The first thing we need to do when we receive a rental application is to look at it before the applicant leaves. Alice didn’t do that. She waited until she went to check it out before she discovered that there were blank places on it. One of the blank places was the phone number of a previous landlord. The first rule when you get a rental application is to look at it to be sure there are no blank spaces. The phone number of the previous landlord is an important item to “forget” to include. A blank space on a rental application means we hand it back to the applicant and tell him or her the application is not acceptable until it is completely filled out—to our satisfaction, not his or hers. Remember, we are in charge, not the applicant.
Since Alice had read my landlord manual Profitable Tenant Selection, she knew how to find the phone number of the previous landlord, even if the applicant didn’t provide it. She called and got a property management company. The property manager told Alice, “I’ve been trying to get a hold of him.”
Huh? Why would a previous landlord, one where the tenant moved out (according to the rental application) four years earlier, need to get in touch with this tenant? That was because this applicant had a current lease with this property management company. Yes, he had rented the apartment in 2002, but he had never let the lease expire as he claimed in his rental application. Who was living there now? Who knows. And it doesn’t matter, because this tenant is still responsible for the rent on that apartment.
I asked Alice if he listed that lease as a current obligation on his application. He had not, of course. That’s two red flags this applicant ran up. First, the blank space and second the omission of the current obligation on the rental application. Time to reject.
But Alice is desperate. She needs to get a tenant in her rental house because it has been vacant for several months. Of course, the only two times a landlord gets into trouble are when he or she is in a hurry or when he or she feels sorry for someone. Alice was in a hurry. Fortunately, I talked her out of having anything to do with this applicant. After all, if he had already lied or misstated twice on the application, you have to figure there’s more that would come out with more thorough checking.
Alice said she had had an applicant a month earlier, whom she described as “really nice,” who had a regular job of some five years, but rode motorcycles and restored antique cars (not in the rental). She had never called me about them, the motorcycles and the antique car restoration disqualified them in her mind. To her credit she said she would call them and see if they were still interested.
Yes, Alice called me just in time. And I hope she can get the antique car restorer as a tenant. The point of this story is that sometimes the applicants who seem the best are far from it. Bad and marginal tenants are expert at sliding past unwary or hurried landlords. Better no tenant than a bad tenant. Go ask Alice.