I should say you aren’t determining whether they are acceptable. You are merely determining whether the incomplete information already demonstrates that they will not be accepted.
You can sometimes reasonably disqualify people on the basis of incomplete information. If the incomplete application shows that the applicant lacks sufficient income to qualify for the apartment, there is no reason to consider a criminal background check that might only further disqualify him.
I see, so you have a pre-application process, and then invite those whom you prefer to complete the full application at the time and place of your choosing. Those applicants, erm, pre-applicants who are not favored must submit a huge check on spec, while preferred pre-applicants can wait for you to invite them.
I mean, one of you has experience in the field and the other doesn’t. If what he’s written is fan fiction, what you’ve written is Sovereign Citizen pamphlets. It surely sounds clever to you, but bears little relationship to the reality of anti-discrimination enforcement.
Which, thankfully, more laws are being passed to prevent. In Chicago, they have to give 60 days notice for rent increases, 120 days if you’ve lived there for 3 or more years.
He has no more experience enforcing this rule than I have designing policies to minimize its impact on landlords. In his transcript, he has places where counsel would have raised objections and places where his deponent gives exactly the answer he wants rather than the answer that his deponent would have been counseled to give as more accurately reflecting the facts.
If you seriously think your experience in the matter is as relevant as his, I think we’re done. A little humility about what you know in life can save you a lot of trouble.
Thank you, @Jimmy_Chitwood, for the, er, “fan fiction” explaining how it’d be likely to go down.
You don’t know what experience I have or what I know but thanks for your unsolicited advice.
Does anyone actually dispute that some landlords play stupid games and only rarely win stupid prizes for doing so?
That’s better, still not necessarily enough time to find and move to a new place. Depends on the housing market.
IMO, that should just be the default for everyone.
My pleasure. Happy little cake next to your name day.
This is really and truly not that serious. The question was, based on my experience, how does it go when somebody attempts to sidestep an entire regulatory scheme with a gambit as half-baked and cockamamie as the one you posited (providing that they get called onto the carpet about it, which as you and @Pleonast noted is not what usually happens). I promise you I have plenty of experience with people with plans as bad as the one you brought up, who thought theirs was a smart plan. Maybe your hypothetical landlord is a lot smarter than those people, but you left that part out.
Sometimes the law is not “a ass, a idiot,” and manages not to be brought to its knees by hamfisted frontal assaults. This is an fair housing regulation, enforced by a civil rights agency. The whole point of the rules is you have to treat people equally. Charging a fee: fine if you tell everyone what it is and administer it equally. Not considering an application complete until you receive the fee: also fine, if you tell everyone that and apply that to everyone. Not treating applicants the same with respect to the fee, in a very obvious way: clearly not fine. Screening criteria must be applied evenly, to all applicants, because it’s an anti-discrimination regulation and that is in the black letter of the rules. This is an easy one.
You should see some of the stupid games the tenants play.
Eh, tenants get the short end of the stick and win stupid prizes far more often than they are the ones playing the stupid games.
Landlords get away with breaking laws, as has been advocated for and described in this thread, all the time, and the tenants are the ones who win the “prize”.
Tenants are just looking for a place to live, any “games” they play are in response to unethical landlords.
Very easy solution for all those landlords who don’t want to deal with tenants. Tenants have no choice.
I would not go nearly that far.
Yes, there are plenty of slumlords out to screw tenants if at all possible. There are also plenty of tenants trying to live for free, or as close to it as they can engineer. Neither of those groups of fraudulent criminals deserves much sympathy.
While honest landlords and honest tenants both pay the price of a market badly polluted by counter-party fraudsters. And the law tries, and generally fails, to keep the worst excesses of both under control.
I don’t think it’s really the subject of this thread, but I don’t find it at all difficult to identify which group out of the “I wish I could live under a roof for free” folks and the “I am going to make it harder for other people to live so I can make money” folks deserves more sympathy.
I’ve seen other local landlords complain about the “tenant focused” laws in Boulder, Colorado, but as a landlord I like them. I think the rules here are generally very fair, and as long as neither side is trying to get away with something, the rules are not a problem.
For example, the one I referenced above about application fees. Each application shouldn’t cost a landlord money, so a fee to cover costs is allowed. It also shouldn’t be a profit center designed to just take money from applicants.
Deposits are another strict one. I can keep part of a deposit to pay for the actual cost of repairing damage; I must provide receipts. I can’t keep it just for fun, or to pay for normal wear and tear. I’ve even advised applicants of this fact and pointed them to the appropriate web pages when they’ve expressed concern about not getting their old deposit back, and so having trouble paying a new deposit. F* the other landlords who are trying to steal people’s money, they make it harder for the rest of us.
I just had to pay $390 for an inspection and rental license from the city. It’s good for four years, and makes sure my rental is suitable for habitation. It’s very easy to pass. I don’t like having to pay, but I’m also glad I’m not competing on price with legal rentals that can’t even bother to keep their place up to these most basic of standards.
There is one new rule that actually relates somewhat to the title of this thread. All new advertising must display my rental license number, and the maximum occupancy. When I’m showing the place I have to post a sign with the maximum occupancy. I have this sign, but expect the city wouldn’t find it funny.
The thing is that the group trying to scam the system to live under a roof for free make it harder for those who are willing to pay rent. Much like people slapping “Service Animal” vests on their untrained pets so they can take them to the supermarket make it harder for people who have animals actually trained to perform a vital service for them.
Yeah, it is one of those things where people massively overreact to anecdotes, and create laws and policies due to a handful of people that allow landlords to abuse the rest.
It’s almost as if the problem is intentionally blown out of proportion for that exact purpose.
People need somewhere to live. The tenants have virtually no power in the relationship, and any time they do try to exercise the few rights the do have, people like those in this thread explain how to get away with breaking the law to deny those rights to them.
So, sure, sometimes people are desperate, as they have no options, as they have had their rights violated, are evicted or turned down illegally, and have their rent jacked up. Then the people who have been victimized by unethical and illegal behavior from landlords do anything out of line, and that gets used as an example of tenants “scamming” and why we need to reduce their protections even further.
I note that there you have no complaints about the group that is preying on those who need a place to live making it harder for landlords that are willing to follow the laws without finding cute little workarounds to people’s rights, like are described in this thread.
What you’re doing is what’s known as a pocket listing. This usually refers to selling a property, but it equally applies to rentals. (According to a real estate acquaintance.)
Pocket Listing, the Pros and Cons
A pocket listing, also referred to as an “off-market listing,” is a property that isn’t listed on the MLS, but is instead marketed to potential buyers by word-of-mouth or through private listing services that limits who can see information about the property.
So you’re clear even if they manage to get a complaint files.
Unless you’re on record saying something stupid like you’ll never rent to [protected group].
This thread is a good reminder of why we need hiring and housing anti-discrimination laws.