<p>My daughter is 19 and will be signing a lease for an off campus house for next year. The landlord requires a parent guarantee, which I understand is pretty standard. The guarantee asks for our social, date of birth and drivers license #. I have no problem signing the guarantee but I am extremely uncomfortable giving all this information to a company that I don’t know. </p>
<p>Is there any way around this or are we stuck? Is it reasonable to offer to put money in an escrow account as a substitute? If I have to provide the information is it possible to “lock” our credit with the credit agencies?</p>
<p>Some places want the cosigner but others don’t. I never had to cosign for my kids. In some cases they were willing to waive that requirement as long as the renter could show that they had x number of months of rent in their bank account. In another case it required a larger (refundable) deposit - say, an extra month. In a couple of cases this took some convincing of the landlord but ultimately they were able to do it. If a place isn’t willing to budge on this point then the kid can go find another place that’s more flexible.</p>
<p>I don’t blame you for being cautious on this point - I am too.</p>
<p>I would be especially hesitant to give out my SS#. I don’t see any reason why a landlord would need it and would ask how they intended to use it if the terms of the lease were not met. When we guaranteed our son’s lease we had to have the paperwork notarized. Perhaps that would suffice.</p>
<p>Landlords usually want to run a credit check on whoever is guaranteeing that the rent is paid. You can’t run a credit check without a social security number. You can always offer to pay 9 or 12 months rent up front.</p>
<p>In Manhattan, landlords typically require tenants to have 40x the monthly rent in annual income. This is pretty difficult for students to show. They will accept a cosigner (usually the parents) if they can show annual income of 80x the monthly rent. Every local market is different.</p>
<p>It’s extremely annoying, especially when they expect you to guarantee the entire rent of a 4 bedroom apartment rather than the 1/4 your child should be responsible for, and yes they need your ss# to run a credit check. They weren’t thrilled when I listed my annual income as zero, but eventually approved my son’s lease.</p>
<p>I had to sign for my older daughter’s apartment, but luckily only for her portion (all the roommates had a separate lease), but not for my son’s. A funny story. My son signed up for electricity for his apartment. He has lived there three months and they haven’t gotten a bill, so he emailed the electric company, did not get a response, emailed again, they finally responded that the ss# he gave was invalid (I assume because he has no credit score) so in order to get a bill he would have to come in and pay a deposit of $250. In the meantime, he continues to have electricity.</p>
<p>When our daughter was searching for rentals with her two friends, we agreed to cover her portion of the rent but required that she find a place that did NOT require any parental involvement. We were not willing to put our finances on the line in the event one or more of her roommates flaked out on rent or caused damages (though we have met her roommates and believe they are both very responsible).</p>
<p>They were able to find one and used my daugher’s information to cover the credit check (she has a credit history with two charge accounts, and can show some income) though the landlord said it was more a formality than anything else. He knew that all the girls’ parents were covering their share of the rent.</p>
<p>For my d’s post-college apartments in both NYC and Philly, I had to provide all that information as a guarantor but not with apartments they rented as undergraduates in upstate NY and suburban Boston. Those landlords are well used to dealing with student rentals and I don’ t recall that guarantors were needed. Security deposits were of course required.</p>