Bogus Credit Report Submitted By Tenant.
We recently received a credit report and rental application from a licensed real estate agent that contained many inconsistencies and raised a number of questions.(both supplied by tenant).
The first 3 pages of the credit report had 3 different origination dates, two of which were last year and with the cover page and a line on the bottom of each page with today’s date on it.
The rental application gave present address as a P.O. Box and a name of a bank as landlord with no contact information. Under former Landlord it was noted as NONE, but on the credit report in the last two years there were 5 former address’s all in the same town.
This applicant wanted to rent a $1.5 million dollar home and this was what was submitted by an experience licensed real estate agent from a nationwide company in one of the richest communities in the U.S.
The landlord was a little flabbergasted at these forms and so we went to the internet to see if we could find anything out. Lord and behold under the State’s Judicial website the applicant was being evicted out of a $2 plus million dollar home (according to state documents a 7 month process …. According to the MLS the home was rented out for $6,000 multiplied by 7 months = $42,000).
When presented the facts the real estate agent was very apologetic and felt betrayed by his client, the manager of this rather large national brand office take-away from this was …..called to say that he was confused...why was $42,000 mentioned in your email
My question to fellow experience ActiveRain members is:
Do you think the tenant’s agent has a responsibly to verify forms submitted by the tenant, especially if they look questionable?
Do you think the office manager reply was correct?
Would you have handled the situation differently? Not say anything?
What is your take-away from this situation?
My conclusion to this was that:
This is a huge waste of our agent’s time and company resources along with the possibility of being putting the company's and agents at a liability risk.
I believe that every Manager needs to put a program together for their offices to be able to limit the agent’s exposure to such a situation and protect the brands name.
*The names, locations and brands have been changed to protect the innocent.
David Popoff is a certified “Green Homes Specialist” Realtor with William Pitt Sotheby’s in lower Fairfield County, Connecticut.
DMK Property Management llc a locally owned company serving lower Fairfield County, Connecticut.
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