How to report tenants' credit? - Landlord Forum thread 327597

How to report tenants' credit? by Joe (Michigan) on November 19, 2014 @09:08

I have a tenant that moved in with his girlfriend this June. They lived together and paid rent on time for 2 months. Then the woman moved out with her children. Since then, the remaining tenant has had troubles to pay rent. He was always late every month, but did make efforts to pay. For November, he paid half in Nov 9, then said he will pay off remainder this week. He has not paid water bill for a long time and the city shut off water already. I want to report this tenant's behavior to credit bureaus. How do I do it an an individual owner? Should I take actions to evict him? Any comments are appreciated. Thank you.

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Re: How to report tenants' credit? by Katiekate (New York) on November 19, 2014 @09:43	[ Reply ]

Do this the correct way. You go to court....you get a court judgement. Then you make sure the court clerk files this with the credit bureaus. If you just do this yourself...you make real sure you have strong evidence. You will be in serious financial trouble if you report this yourself and cannot PROVE it to the satisfaction of the credit bureaus. The fair credit reporting act give HUGE power to the person who has had the credit messed up without that PROOF. Lawyers love these case ... Just like accidents..they get paid. They will take it to federal court and you will pay.

Re: How to report tenants' credit? by Bill (MD) on November 19, 2014 @11:31	[ Reply ]

Generally it is prohibitively expensive to report to the credit reporting agency. Most small to even med size landlords will not pay the appropriate fees to do this. To be "anointed" by experian/equifax/trans-union you have to run your business for so long and and to prove certain business practices. You then pay big fees to get access to their credit reporting portal. In addition I was told once we report to the credit reporting agency our notes are considered "accessory information". So It doesn't carry the same weight as lets say a bad CC or something like that. When you take them to court and get a judgement against them it shows up in their judicial record for that state. THAT IS FOREVER. IT NEVER GOES AWAY..... (unlike a credit report) When they go for another landlord or property a BC (background check) will be done and instantly see your name and the tenants name. Even the property address and judgement amount. This stays on their record for a long as they live on the face of earth. Even if you file a P&Q and they pay up before the court date it will show a dismissal. It will still show amounts and everything else. So it will have a record that you were their LL and they rented at that address. This is also good because they have a hard time trying to cover up that they lived there. Then when you get a call for reference you give them a earful...

Re: How to report tenants' credit?

Re: How to report tenants' credit? by Bryan (Ia) on November 20, 2014 @02:21	[ Reply ]

As a member of the LPA, after you receive your monetary judgement from the courts you can report it here: http://www.thelpa.com/lpa/credit-reporting.html