(NY) Landlords Would Be Fined $1000 For Checking Tenant Applicant Credit History

youtube.com ^ | 8/20/22 | Real Estate Investing and Landlord News

[AbolishCSEU]

A proposal by a New York politician was to fine Landlords $1000 if they check a tenant’s credit history during the application process. The politician believes that credit checks aren’t fair to tenants, however it never occurs to her that it isn’t fair to landlords to not have the opportunity to put the best possible tenants in their property.

[mass55th]

It makes me glad I never owned a home, or had any money to invest in real estate. It's good to be poor, but still able to pay your rent and bills each month. I live in a small apartment complex in Rome, New York. The landlord has owned this property for many years, built it, and the family also owns a lot of other property in the city, residential and business. They are not slum landlords. They've certainly taken care of the old people who live in their properties. I am one of them. Been here 22 years. That's the longest I've ever lived anywhere, even in the house I grew up in. When something breaks, they take care of it within a day or two. If it's a serious problem, it's taken care of immediately. They are responsible owners, and have been for decades. I know they check the credit history of everyone who rents from them, but despite that, they've been stiffed on many occasions by people who have moved out without giving them any notice. That comes with renting property to people. Every landlord takes a chance when they rent to someone. A person can have a good credit score, yet be a terrible and troublesome neighbor. Someone who has built up their reputation, and business for years, shouldn't have their hands tied in order to protect that business from slug tenants. There's plenty of those individuals even with credit checks. I can't imagine what it will be like if this proposal is passed. I know it will cause landlords to raise the rents of their trustworthy residents, to cover for the rent loss on the bad ones they are forced to rent to. Don't these politicians realize that when the landlord is protecting himself from damage to his property, and possible financial ruin, that he is also protecting his reliable tenants as well?

Democrats control the State Legislature on a two to one ratio. It's a lonely world for a Republican who sits in the Assembly and the Senate in Albany.

[mass55th]

"Next it will be banks and mortgage companies which will be forbidden to do credit checks on applicants."

Maybe that won't happen because both Republicans and Democrats have big investments in those companies.

[AbolishCSEU]

We have completely rehabbed/remodeled the two duplexes that we own at our own (pretty substantial) expense. New electric 200 amp service, in some cases siding, all new replacement windows, new furnace and water heaters, new drywall, new plumbing, new flooring, bathroom and kitchen sinks, toilets, countertops, new frig and stove with W/D hookups and off street parking. 1 2 bdrm unit and 3 3 bdrm units. All safe, sanitary, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors hardwired, passed the CO and in that town there is a landlord registry.

We fix anything that day, hands down. Of course there is little to fix b/c we’ve pretty much replaced it all with new. That is why we are VERY selective when it comes to tenants. Would rather see it go vacant than rent to someone who is going to tear it up and not pay rent. Of course the BLUE states want to FINE property owners for keeping their units vacant...

[Albion Wilde]

My advice to you is to contact employers, community leaders, or pastors whom you know well and tell them you are looking for a private rental leasing relationship. Do they know anyone reliable who needs to rent for awhile?

[Political Junkie Too]

When will NY make it illegal for auto dealers to check credit histories before leasing cars?

-PJ

[Alvin Diogenes]

It's civilization affirmation...

There's precious little of that these days :( .

[Scrambler Bob]

I’ve been predicting this for months. I currently have a vacancy and the NYS tenant pool is shallow, needs bleach and contains several baby ruths.
14% of the respondents are qualified to move from the pre-qual to the actual application!
= = =

So how does the Blackrock (buying up houses for rentals) expect to overcome this?

Will they have power to evict? Or would they be exempt from tenants not paying rent?

Or would the Govt. pay them for any missed payments and associated expenses?

[mass55th]

I wish you well with your duplexes. I hope you can get, and keep decent tenants. My brother died in 1995. He and his family owned a home in Rochester, New York. It was the neighborhood we’d grown up in, but by that time, the area was going downhill fast. Not long after my brother’s death, my sister-in-law’s mother passed, and she had the opportunity to move into her family home in Ontario, New York. I told her to jump on it, because if she stayed in the city too long, she’d get too old to want to move at all. She held on to the home in the city because there was no mortgage, and fixed it up to rent it. I told her she was nuts to rent the place out, especially in that area, but she did it anyway. The first and only time she rented the house, she got burnt. The woman (black) totally destroyed the place, and did it, in a very short time. My sister-in-law ended up having to evict the woman, and went through small-claims court in order to get damages. It took a very long time, but she did eventually get some of her money back. When my niece married, my sister-in-law turned the house over to her. She and her husband lived in it for while, fixed it up, then managed to find a decent couple in the same neighborhood who wanted to buy the house, while they held on to the mortgage. In the end, it worked out well for both sides.

[AbolishCSEU]

I moved out of inner city Rochester in 1994 and became a defacto landlord. I rented out two houses in Rochester. At the time, I worked for the corrupt Rochester Housing Authority. They hated landlords and came after me for a trumped up “conflict of interest” which didn’t exist. I had the full force of the govt lawyering up against me as a single divorced mom.

It was a microcosm of what President had been experiencing so I completely sympathize. I left that job and had to change careers to IT.

The RHA bankrupted me by blackballing me from future employment and having me run up legal fees to defend myself as they had one of their tenants in my building and riding to pay me her subsidized rent. They caused me to lose the rentals but we’ve gotten back into the business recently as hubby’s contractor skills are put to good use.

[AbolishCSEU]

The govt will exempt them from the rules for the “little guys.”

[NetAddicted]

Oy vey!

[mass55th]

What a horrible experience you went through. A lot of political games in Rochester. When I graduated from high school in 1965, my first job was with Monroe County, Children's Services. I can still remember one of my co-workers telling me that I'd better register as a Democrat if I wanted to keep my job. Back then you had to be 21 to vote, so I could register anyway.

I left Rochester in 1972 with my then husband, and our two sons, and moved to the Utica-Rome area when he took a teaching job. Got divorced in l979. In 1980, I went to work for NY State Corrections, and moved with my kids to Auburn, New York. Transferred from there in December 1983, to Marcy Correctional, not far from Rome. Marcy had previously been a psych center that Mario Cuomo had closed, then renovated into a prison. Retired from my job in 2003.

I haven't been back to the city of Rochester since September of 2011 when my second oldest sister passed away in hospice care there. She had been living at a complex in Gates, off of Buffalo Road. We grew up on Immel Street, which is off Jay Street, near Ames. Our grammar school was on Colvin Street, right across from where my brother's home was. It's been senior citizen apartments for many years now. My two sisters and I went to Madison High School. My brother went to Edison. I'm the last one left in my family. I turned 75 last week.

[zeugma]

So, why do companies that make automobile and housing loans get to run credit checks? Isn’t that racist too?

[AbolishCSEU]

Don’t give them any ideas