This morning I got an email from a landlord who is curious about what or how he can refuse a prospective tenant.
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"Hi I read your blog and you have good info on there. Keep it up. I have become a new landlord, some apartments are already rented with leases and two are not. I have posted my own ads and I got alot of replies but some of them I am not to comfortable with renting to. Can I deny a tenant a[n] apartment?"
Well in short, yes.
You can deny a tenant an apartment but you must be careful on your reasons.
Valid reasons to deny:
- Credit history.
- Smoking.
- Drug use.
- Number of people. (Be careful on this one. You can not discriminate against a family or non-family) But if you have a one bedroom apartment and 7 people are looking to rent your apartment - yes, you can deny for the NUMBER of people not family status!
- Pets.
- Length of lease desired. (You are requesting a year lease and the tenant wants more or less).
- Income to rent ratio.
- Convictions - (including Sex predators)
Reasons that could be discriminating:
- Family status (Married, divorcee, single, same sex marriage, etc.) Let me clarify, a landlord cannot say to a prospective tenant "Oh, I only want single people in here" or "Or I don't want a married couple because that only means they MIGHT have kids".
- Race - (Do I need to explain? Thought NOT!).
- Political Stance.
- Religion.
- Sexual orientation.
- Disability.
- Age. (Very gray area).
also read:
Landlord, Tenants and Co-signers.
Have a great weekend, I will see you Monday!
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