Credit, Background, School Checks from Landlord? (foreclosure, rental, credit report)

[JennySquirrel]

I have a few questions to see if this is normal if someone knows. If a landlord wants to do a credit check, what information are they able to see? Bills? Amounts due? Investment accounts with balances? How much can they see or do they just get your credit score? We got an application from a potential landlord and they want $50 per person to run a background, school, and credit check on everyone. Then they have a seperate application asking for accounts and balances, numbers, mothers maiden name,etc. They even will do a driving records check!

This seems kind of creepy to me to hand a stranger that much information. With all the home foreclosure problems in Florida, I am a little concerned about handing out that much info to someone I don't know.

Also, why are they wanting to know our college info? If we sent them all this info, they would have everything they would need on us to do anything. With the identity theft these days, this one scares me. What do you think???

[Ladywithafan]

Originally Posted by JennySquirrel

I have a few questions to see if this is normal if someone knows. If a landlord wants to do a credit check, what information are they able to see? Bills? Amounts due? Investment accounts with balances? How much can they see or do they just get your credit score? We got an application from a potential landlord and they want $50 per person to run a background, school, and credit check on everyone. Then they have a seperate application asking for accounts and balances, numbers, mothers maiden name,etc. They even will do a driving records check!

This seems kind of creepy to me to hand a stranger that much information. With all the home foreclosure problems in Florida, I am a little concerned about handing out that much info to someone I don't know.

Also, why are they wanting to know our college info? If we sent them all this info, they would have everything they would need on us to do anything. With the identity theft these days, this one scares me. What do you think???

I haven't ever had my college info requested. On a credit check they can see everything from bankruptcies to felonies...however, they don't always go into enough detail to see felonies that have been totally dropped (but still appear on a basic check)...as far as account balances & numbers, personally, that's going way to far. Enough would be yes, you have a checking/savings at BOA & you've been with that bank, since 1990, for example, and no I would not give out maiden names either...too much infor for identity theft...

[Big House]

Sometimes they need to know your credit score, and can call the bank, with you permission to find that you have enough cash on hand to satisfy 6-months rent. They normally will get enough other information in order to do a back-ground check for felonies, bankruptcies, etc.... It is not like you are buying a car or a house, they need to confirm that you have sufficent funds, and you are credit worthy. We had to do the same things when we cosigned the rental agreement for our daughter. So it is not unusual to have some checking done on you back ground. A lot of my clients have the same policy in place prior to renting. It is normal to qualify tenants these days.

[SoFLGal]

What if you just pulled your credit score yourself, on one of those free credit report sites and gave them a copy? I would feel uncomfortable giving out all of that info. Especially mothers maiden name. As long as you give a deposit I'm not sure why they would need bank statements. It just seems a little excessive to me

Hope to see you in Florida soon