Landlord asking for Application and SS# before showing apartment

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Originally Posted by dkf747

If you were searching for a rental and stopped at several where they all checked your credit, isn't that going to negatively affect your credit?

If anything it would be a soft hit of only a couple of points. The company I use has an agreement with my landlord group to not ding the credit at all when they check credit for one of their landlords. I don't think that is an uncommon relationship.


And how many places would you be applying for all at the same time? That could be a lot of money invested in application fees,

[dkf747]

Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke

If anything it would be a soft hit of only a couple of points. The company I use has an agreement with my landlord group to not ding the credit at all when they check credit for one of their landlords. I don't think that is an uncommon relationship.


And how many places would you be applying for all at the same time? That could be a lot of money invested in application fees,

Thanks! To answer that last question, the topic of this thread suggest they want to check before you see it. That would mean more checks than usual.

[WorldKlas]

I’m a private LL and I do a pre-screen before we show a place. In our advertisement, we list our leasing requirements. But if they respond to our ad and ask for a viewing, we verify they meet our guidelines before setting appt.

We ask the potential applicant to provide names, relationships and ages of all who will reside there. We ask the potential applicant to re-affirm their income is 3x rent. We ask why they are moving; if they have pets we send our pet policy and ask age of pet, breed, and confirmation they are house trained (we don’t allow dogs under 18 month and only really old cats); where they work and how long they have been with the current employer. We ask if anyone smokes, has been convicted of a felony, has been evicted.

We like the responses, we show the place. If not, we don’t. If they like the place and seem reasonable they get an application and we tell them NOT to provide SSN on the app. If I like the application and its consistent with our guidelines, they get invited to do the TransUnion background verification (costs them $40) and if that comes back clean, they must provide me copy of most recent 2 paystubs, veterinarian records to prove their pet is vaccinated and neutered/spayed, let me take a photo of their drivers licenses and finally provide me their SSN. (TransUnion doesn’t provide to me but obtains it from them).

All the above is the normal process for a private LL. These days, I might even ask for Covid vaccination card — haven’t had a recent vacancy so not sure about that.

I can see a private landlord checking a driver’s license before taking someone inside a property but not doing a pre-qual that includes SSN.

I think you are dealing with someone unprofessional or a scammer. In either case, why would you want to proceed?

[pclem]

Definitely not normal, but there are a lot of weird/paranoid landlords out there especially new ones renting out their primary residence for first time.

I'd just say I understand your desire to screen out bad tenants but I don't give out that info out unless I've seen the place and am applying, if you'd like to meet me in person before showing the apartment I'd be happy to do so (at a coffee shop etc). IMO being cautious about it yourself shows you are the careful and conscientious person they're apparently looking for, if they're not just scamming. I think a scam isn't that likely since believe it or not your SSN and DOB are actually publicly available. I used to have fairly cheap membership (maybe like $40-50/mo) in a database used by collections agencies to track down a few deadbeat customers who moved, and it would give you anyone's correct SSN. So any serious criminal is probably already aware of that.

I was looking for a rental house a few years ago and the couple was ultra cagey and wouldn't tell me the address before having me a submit a lot of financial info etc. And this was in a virtually no crime area. Luckily ended up finding a better place right away and didn't have to deal with that.

[Coolair]

Even if it is not a scam you should not get involved in this rental property as the landlord seems to be really out of mind and you will be facing more problems so pass this property.