There are a lot of misunderstandings out there regarding rentals and in general about real estate. These need to be cleared out to make sure that the everyday people who are living or looking for rentals can fulfill required documents without any hassle. The question we’ll answer today is that who exactly needs to fill out the rentals application.

General Rule

The common misconception is that the person who pays the rent of the real estate property is the one who should fill out the rental application. However, that is not the case. Anyone who lives at the property needs to fill out the form as well. All above 18 people living at the property as well as someone who co-signs the lease of the real estate property but doesn’t live there needs to fill out the form. Similarly, anyone who moves in the property at a later point must also fill out this document. Minors are out of the scenario. This is because you cannot hold minors responsible for any sort of agreement in any case.

Other scenarios

This ideal situation may lead to questions for different circumstances. Let’s tackle them one by one.

Firstly, there is the scenario of multiple people living in the real estate property but they share the same income. Here, both the adults must fill the rental application but the background details, like the credit history, need only be given of the person who earns and pays the rent. This applies to couples, parents with an adult child, and all other situations involving one person who earns and another adult.

In another scenario, you might be giving out your property to a family where the parents permanently live in the property, but the kids are mostly away at college. Although the children aren’t permanently residing here, they still need to fill out the application if they are above 18 and come to stay for two weeks or more. In another case, the parents could be co-signing a property for their college kids to stay in. If this is your situation, you will get the rental application for your real estate property filled out by the parents who are co-signing the lease, by the student, and any other adult who would be living in the same property. This way if the parents don’t pay you your rent in time, you can demand the children who live there for the payment.

The most confusing situation is when there are room-mates involved. The same rules apply here; you get the rental application filled out by every adult room-mate. The issue arises when either one room-mate changes place before the end of the agreement, or one of the room-mates is replaced with a new person without informing the landlord. To eradicate this issue, you should get the application signed by all current room-mates and inform the tenants that in case a new person comes in, they must also fill the form.

Keep all these scenarios in mind to make sure you never get in real estate trouble regarding rentals again!