free credit reports for tenants
free credit reports for tenants
Can credit history hurt by paying partial rent?
My wife and I are excellent tenants in a 4-family building, but due to a neighbor complaining about us (not liking us from day 1), we have gotten a Cease and Desist letter- despite our trying to mend the situation (during our free time, when we’re not working our 60-hour workweeks)
Now, our landlord has tacked on a 150 dollar fee to our monthly rent statement as a line item. And in response we have been paying our monthly rent on time, as usual, sans the fee**
So the question is:
Would continuation of ‘partial payment’ affect our credit report? We’re in CT.
**There’s a whole backstory to our situation, where we had hired a lawyer who received a statement from the apartment complex’s law firm that ‘we are recognized as good tenants and they were not going to actually press for eviction’, etc, but that’s for other ears and other times…
In a nutshell, probably not. However there are three things he can attempt to do to your credit:
First, if he has a contract with the credit bureau which allows him to report status of rent, he could report your rent as late. I have never seen a landlord have this kind of account with the credit bureau, so it is doubtful that your landlord could. If he did, he would be required to notify you, in writing, that he can report to the credit bureau. That notification usually is a small disclosure on the bottom of his monthly statement or a letter from him.
Second, he can send the debt to a collection agency that is contracted with the credit bureau. If that happens, notify the collection agency in writing that you dispute the amount owed. The collection agency will probably refuse to handle the account because they don’t want to risk violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act if you are innocent of the extra charges.
Third, the landlord can take you to court. If, and only if, he wins, it will damage your credit.
Having said that, please remember that you haven’t told us the “whole backstory” and those details are critical.
