Owner refuses to deal. Legal/ethical?
Question: Currently I live with a married couple, both of who are in the Air Force, one is 31, the other 24. I am 30, and a professional. Because we’ve decided we need more space, and my boyfriend plans to live with us, we’ve started looking at houses to rent. He is 29 and professionally employed. We all currently live in Arlington County, Virginia, and have a combined income of well over $100,000.
This past weekend, we looked at a house, also in Arlington County, that had just been listed by its owner, a military officer. We were quite impressed and put in our applications with our realtor, who delivered them to the owner’s realtor Sunday morning. We met all qualifications in the MLS, and filled out the applications fully. The rent is $1600 monthly, only $250 more than the three of us pay now (and my boyfriend currently has a mortgage of half that), so there is no question that we are financially quite secure.
Today, Tuesday, our realtor told us that he spoke to the owner’s realtor, who told him that the owner asked him not even to process our applications, and refused to give any reason. Obviously, since the credit checks had not even been done, it is not a bad credit rating.
My questions: 1) Is it legal for the owner to do this? Under fair housing laws, don’t we need to know if he has a non-discriminatory reason for refusing to negotiate with us? My suspicion is that he doesn’t want to rent to a group, and if he takes the money for the credit checks and processes the application, he’s got a legal obligation to rent to us if we’re not a risk. So I think he hopes that by refusing to even process the applications, we’ll just back down and forget the matter, and he won’t have to justify his actions.
2) If it is legal, do you believe it is ethical on the parts of either the owner or his realtor to refuse to give us a reason? Our realtor said that he had never had this happen to him before in his 20+ years in the business, and he’s flabbergasted. Should we file a complaint about the owner’s realtor?
Here in the DC area, much of the housing is rented to military personnel, and military personnel can only rent housing that is approved. If my housemates were to lodge a complaint with their housing office, this owner would no longer be able to rent any properties to military folks.
Frankly, I’m stumped at why the owner would react so oddly and so abruptly. He’s met none of us, and has at the very least acted discourteously. I suspect that this is indeed a sign that ours would be a bad landlord-tenant relationship even were we to rent from him. But if he’s acting at all illegally or unethically, I really don’t want him to get away with this without our at least standing up for our rights.
Thoughts? Advice?
Answer: I don’t know why the owner won’t rent, but I know why I wouldn’t rent to you. I would never let more than 1 person sign a lease. I would consider married people to be 1 person in this case. If each of you is responsible for 1/4 of the rent and 1 of you moves out then there is no way that I can legally get the last 1/4 of the rent. I would insist on having 1 of you be responsible for the entire rent. If 1 of you was willing to do this than I would rent to you.
The owner can also legally restrict the number of people who live in the apartment, as long as the number is “reasonable” and he uses the same number for all applicants.
The owner should at least tell you his reasoning, but then again do you really want a landlord who is a jerk?
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