Helping my fixed-income in-laws find a new apartment - advice

In My Humble Opinion
1

My girlfriend’s parents got a 60-day notice to leave the place they’ve rented for 35 years as on-site managers. (Owner sold it.) Obviously, they’re quite worried and a bit at a loss, since they haven’t looked for an apartment since the Reagan administration.

In looking at listings, filling out applications, and speaking to one landlord, the big issue finding a new place is going to be their income. They’ve been paying below-market rent for a long time; right now a market-value place is going to be somewhere between 70-90% of their income.

That’s okay - they have significant savings, and are willing to dip into them for quite a while. (We have a medium-term plan of buying a place as a family together, but we don’t want to try to buy and move into a house in 60 days.)

Still, they make terrible tenant risks on paper if you judge them solely on income, and we get the impression that having a co-signer is a big ding for lots of (but not all) landlords/property management companies. And creative solutions like pre-paying several months/offering a bigger deposit are tricky to do when dealing with a big impersonal management firm.

**Here’s our bright idea to get more bites at the apartment apple:
What if my girlfriend, instead of applying as a co-signer, applies as a 3rd tenant? Adding her income to the pot?
**Since she wouldn’t actually move into the new joint, is this stupid, illegal, or just unethical? (Besides having her name on the lease - small risk, given her parents and their financial state.)

I looked at a couple sample rental agreements, and while subletting and guests are common no-nos, I didn’t see any language about the failure of one tenant to move in/occupy if the others do, pay the rent, etc.

It seems like it might work if dealing with the kind of big property management companies I’ve rented from before that dominate the market here - they’re not going to be nosing around to see if all 3 people are actually occupying the joint. I wouldn’t try it with a private landlord who lives next door, but that kind of landlord is a lot easier to talk to about my in-laws’ situation anyway.

Thoughts? State is California, if that matters. Many thanks!
PS: Other advice is welcome; just FYI, we are aware of and applying for low-cost senior living, but the waiting lists are long, and we are not going to move somewhere cheaper, as economically wise as that would be.

2

When my in-laws were looking for an apartment (moving out of a retirement home), they had various constraints and very little energy to shop for a flat. The best match we found… was a small condo for sale. Eventually, my hubby and I bought the condo, then rented it out to them (in effect, their rent covered our mortgage and property tax payments).

Maybe you could do the same. Not all condo contracts allow owners to rent out their property, though.

3

IMO …

Somewhere between illegal and unethical. At least tqht was the conclusion of a big thread a few years ago where the OP was co-signing for an apartment for a friend he/she never intended to cohabit with. You folks at least have the blood relative thing going on.

You know this, but you’ll probably do better finding a rental from an individual owner than something managed by MegaRapaciousPropertyCorp.

4

Thanks to both of ya!
Buying a small condo is an option, but probably not gonna happen in 58 days. I will go look for the old thread you mentioned, LSL.

My real hope is someone can persuade Dad to move in with Mom’s sister (into Cousin’s old rooms). But negotiating with a Faceless Corporation would probably be easier than that.

5

Re

Have you actually confirmed this impression about so-signers as a fact? I’m in commercial real estate and most landlords have no problem at all with co-signers if the tenant credit is weak and the co-signer credit is strong. Also paying a big chunk of rent up front is normally a huge incentive for landlords to get past credit issues. Both of these (in commercial real estate) are loved by landlords and will get deals done. Also not every apartment complex is owned by a mega corp, regional owners are very common.

The only caveat I have in this is you are saying she is your “girlfriend” and you are talking about personally taking on levels of financial commitment to her older parents many married people would balk at. It’s nice to be a hero but one bad argument can blow up a GF/BF relationship, but the lease commitment is a contract. US marriages have around a 40% divorce rate and BF/GF breakups are far higher. Even if you co-sign if their rent is 90% of their income that is a hugely untenable scenario and will drain their savings quickly.

I guess I just have a bad feeling about going into a situation where the first order of business is to rescue your GF’s parents and solve their housing problems. If they have substantial savings there are much, much cheaper places in the US than California for them to live on a more sustainable basis.

6

Signing a contract while intending not to comply with a term known to be material is a textbook definition of fraud. It may be that the landlord would never go to the trouble of suing on this basis, but if it did, your girlfriend could be liable for various enhanced penalties beyond just back rent, and exposed to years of negative collateral consequences in any situation where her trustworthiness is under scrutiny, like a background check or a security clearance.

Disclaimer: I am not your lawyer, and this anonymous noise should not be taken as legal advice. I may be wrong.