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Rent requirements in the US are nuts
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this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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But wouldn't it be worse if it's a faceless corporate landlord you are dealing with? There is virtually no "relationship" so if they find out you obtained the lease through fraudulent means, are they not more likely to come down on you? Because you are a "high-risk" tenant and they don't want to encourage this behavior. Just handle it through laws since it's in their favor.
My point is, the system is rigged against renters for sure, but I don't think there is necessarily a win here if you do this.
That's what the second bit of my reply was about. They dgaf. They're not going to look into it past the approval process. Think about it. If you lose your job and are no longer able to pay rent but have a month or twos' rent saved, are they going to evict you? No, of course not. They have no way of knowing you lost your job. What if you take a new job after that that pays less than the one that qualified you for your apartment and now you technically no longer qualify. Are they going to evict you? No. They have no way of knowing unless you tell them. And even then they don't care. If your rent is paid they don't give a shit. They're not going to look into it. There's no reason to.
If you lie about how much you make to get into a place that's beyond your means then that's your own fault. You're going to get evicted when you keep coming up short. They're still not going to slap you for fraud. If you lie about your income to get into a place that's within your means (because the income requirements for these.places are entirely arbitrary and unrealistic) then you're going to face no repercussions because you know how to pay your bills.
Well the whole thing is contingent on the fact that you can actually pay rent. The stress test is the landlord's way of trying to verify that, and if you are assuming you can do that above all else then sure, everything will be just peachy.
I'm not absolutely not convinced that everyone who claims they can pay rent actually could, however.
Please, show me one instance of someone in the US being arrested for fraud because they lied about their income. Show me a real world example of this "stress test" you mentioned.
The same could be said of people who meet the income requirements for any given residence. Just because someone can pay rent on paper doesn't mean they can actually pay rent. Doubly so for credit checks. Someone with a low score isn't necessarily in an unmanageable amount of debt and someone with a high score isn't necessarily someone that has a manageable amount of debt.
If you're going to commit fraud in order to secure a rental then you need to go in with the understanding that it's important to know what you can actually afford. The same goes when you're doing it through "legitimate" means. If you can't pay the bills, then you lose your house. Its the same conclusion whether or not you lied about your income.
You're not going to go to jail, they're not going to check. And given the situation a lot of people are finding themselves in right now, it's pretty shitty to not empathize with people who are struggling to keep a roof over their heads, appealing to "the legality" of what their doing. As if the laws and people who wrote them aren't responsible for the fact that people have to resort to fraud in the first place.
The fact that you're either unwilling or incapable of understanding this shows how little you think of people who are struggling to make ends meet. Your constant resistance to the idea of people doing what they need to do to acquire shelter results in you essentially saying "if you have to lie to get a roof over your head, then you just shouldn't have a place to live". Which is a pretty fucked up stance to take.
When did I say anything about anyone going to jail? The only point I made about getting a rental through fraudulent means is that it could potentially backfire on the tenant if the tenancy law allows landlords to break the lease because of it (which largely depends on regional tenancy laws).
So what do you suggest as a way for landlords to make sure people can actually pay rent? Because this is a legitimate issue that landlords have (corporate or not) before entering into a contractual agreement.
Get off your soapbox and take your strawman with you. These are entirely your words, not mine, none of what I wrote has anything to do with your virtue signaling and pretend grievances. The only "fucked up stance" I see here is you debating an imaginary opponent on points you made up yourself.
If the upper echelon's of society don't want common people to do things dishonestly to get by, then don't rig the game.