Can potential landlords ask that you "prove" to have 3 months rent in the bank?
A friend of mine needs to move but doesn't have much money saved.
She seems to think that potential landlords can look at your bank account to see how much $$$ you have in there, and if you refuse they deny your application.
There's really no legal limit on checks on ability to pay except that you can't charge more than $30/person to check credit, can't discriminate against a protected class and can't favor applicants with Social Security Numbers over those with Taxpayer ID Numbers.
But they might ask her to produce a bank statement or letter from her bank indicating that. I have no idea if that's legal or not, but that might be what she's talking about.
Sounds like the same mindset as my husband a few years ago when he would write checks at stores. Stores that run them through swiping machines use that to electronically match up with a bad check database, but my husband thought they were checking his balance on his checking account by doing that. :P
I think they have asked me to show that my rent would be no more than about 30% of my monthly income. But they didn't actually ask for a pay stub or bank statement or anything. They may have run a credit check; I don't know.
If there are a lot of apartment vacancies they might be more lenient just to get their occupancy up. If vacancies are limited, I guess they can afford to be pickier.
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