I have solid credit and am willing to guaranty my kid’s apartment lease next Fall… but I CRINGE over the personal information required to “check my credit” for purposes of the guaranty… I have no problem with giving my name, address, phone numbers, place of employment, monthly income, am even willing to give my drivers license number and DOB… but the full SSN too? Why not just the last 4 digits of the SSN? My concern is with how my personal data/information is protected… I worry that it is not very secure… Does this drive anyone else crazy?
How do you expect them to run a credit check without your SSN? That’s the primary identifier all the credit reporting agencies use.
I guess I thought they could run it using the Drivers License number… along with the last 4 digits of the SSN and the DOB… maybe not?
The only way to run your credit report is by using your SSN. Not everyone has drivers license.
If you don’t want to give all that information, a work around would be to prepay your kid’s rent.
I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t think there’s any way around it.
They’re renting their apartment to college kids-- they have a right to want to ensure that they’ll get their money. Having your social security number is the only way to do that.
DH balked at giving his SS# to guarantee our D’s rent. He was able to get around that by providing a letter from our bank showing we had a balance of some named amount which escapes me at this moment.
We got around it by guaranteeing with a credit card.
As a landlord I’d say you really need to provide an SSN; I can’t run a credit check without it. Now if you wanted to give me a couple extra month’s rent (in addition to first and last month) as an additional security deposit, I’d probably take that in lieu.
I talked to the leasing office this morning and found out that I could provide two months prepaid rent as a security deposit in lieu of a personal guaranty. I will pay one month and my daughter will pay the other - that way she is “invested.” I think this is a fair compromise.
Anyone consider the idea of making student an authorized user on parent’s credit card (for emergency use) effectively allowing student to gain parent’s good credit score and bypassing the need for parent to submit their SSN. We’ve done this since S was in college and S never had problem signing lease on his own despite being a FT student in both college and post college years with at most a PT job. Downside is if parent has poor credit or if child is irresponsible and goes crazy with parental credit card but latter can be mitigated somewhat by regularly monitoring online your credit card charges (eg setting alerts) which you should be doing anyways.
Glad you found a way around this. Where my d rents they take a couple of months rent, a month’s security and a credit card for payments. No need for a guarantor when they have so much already!
Making child an authorized user doesn’t mean that things like first and last month’s rents or security deposits can be avoided, it just means parents aren’t directly involved (eg co sign) in student’s lease
Consider yourself lucky, hanally, that you only had to prepay 2 months rent. My son, who had paid rent for 2 years in college and had excellent credit rating, plus a good paying job (annual salary 40x monthly rent), had to put down 6 months rent security deposit in Manhattan. We were not allowed to be guarantor because we did not live in the NY-NJ-CT area.
Our son has a Fico score that many adults would envy (due to his own CC’s and co-signed on ours) but slumlords at his college will not rent without full parent data including SS. I guess they get away with it because of an extreme housing crisis. I’m not sure how all the international students there get apartments, since their parents are overseas and don’t have a US credit report/SS, etc.
Some locations - this may be at the state or county level - have landlord/tenant legislation that does not permit a landlord to charge an extra month’s security deposit. Typically tenant-friendly laws exist in some cities where there have historically had problems with too little affordable housing, etc.
So while it may be tempting to ask for an extra month’s security deposit, check with your local jurisdiction first.
Often, the local college may have an off-campus housing department or advisor who can provide some general assistance. At many colleges, a local property management company handles a large majority of student off-campus housing.
I don’t mean to imply that @anomander is suggesting anything improper in #7 - just that what works in one area may not fly in another.
Despite the fact that many of the students renting are still just young people who may be a higher risk of causing some property damage than the general public, the simple fact that they are attending college indicates a certain level of responsibility, so the risk of them not paying rent is perhaps a little lower than the general public. So the vast majority of student/landlord relationships are in fact very very good.
A friend of ours did what @Nrdsb4 noted in #5, she is a VP at a bank and she set up the automatic transfer between the separate account they set up for their child’s rent, and the landlord.
Sorry, I’m asking a question about something someone brought up, not actually answering OP because I don’t know. But, someone referenced adding child to parent’s CC to help child credit score by virtue of parent’s good score. Does this wok both ways? According to Discover , my 22 yr old has a FICO of 785. He has only worked part time and only has had the one credit card which he has paid off or paid on time each month. He does have some student loans that aren’t due yet because he hasn’t graduated. When he got the card at 18 his dad was added as an authorized user, but the account is S’s. Is S’s score so high due to dad’s great credit score? If S fails to pay, will dads score be affected? The account is under ss# of S.
I think prepaying rent is a good way to go. I also question the security of my info in those situations. I still see the SS line on some doctor office forms. I don’t fill it in, but I bet a lot of people think they have to. I think there are laws that require the person checking the credit to keep the info secure, but how on earth would that be enforced?!
@Patsam - So I’m not an expert but DH is the primary on our American Express.I am an authorized user. I recently called and asked them if we put our 21 year old on the card as an authorized user would it help his credit score. The person said yes it would help because they would have his SS# and be reporting on his card use/payment even though the bill comes to us. I think S’s score is increased because WE pay the bill every month. Your husband should pull his credit score report and see if your sons discover account it showing up. If it does and your son doesn’t pay then I believe your husbands score would be affected.
We are dealing with the same thing…plus this company wants 2 months of out income stubs. I’m having issues with that.