tennesseestud

Hey all, an odd situation I have found myself in with a company called Realpage inc, who background check tennants for rental property.

I moved to Tennessee from The Midlands in August 2013 and for the last year have been living in my mother-in-laws house, she had been living with her husband in a different county and allowed us to look after the house, we pay utils and land tax. Well she listed the house for sale so we moved in with our grandparents. The house sale fell through, so now we need to rent because we both have student loans and being new here I'm not likely to be of any help in applying for a mortgage.

I updated USCIS within 10 days of moving (to the next house up the road, you can walk between them). Me and my wife are trying to move closer to areas of employment and public transit while I apply for a driving licence and jobs.

Our journey:
K1 Visa (I-129F) August 2013 from London Embassy, we married October 2013 ... Clean Police Certificate, Green Card Approved July 2014 w/o-interview in Memphis (we have a letter saying our case didn't look fraudulent) and I have a SSN (Social Security Number) active from September 2014 cleared by Homeland Security (I has to sit at an SSA office and verify my documents and take an oath).

So all my documents are in order. My credit in the UK was 900+ but I know it doesn't translate, my police certificate was clean and we were never interviewed by UCSIS because they didn't suspect sham marriage and we would be fine on paperwork alone.

I had my fingerprints, stats and photos taken for the Green Card last December near to Nashville Airport actually.

But here's the thing, Realpage have:
- flagged me for fraud,
- claimed my criminal history is unsatisfactory,
- and my credit rating is flagged as awful (understandably, but I have a joint account with wifey).

So we have been denied our rental application, because I don't work, have no criminal background and have no credit, even though my wife (USC) will be paying rent.


My thoughts are:
- My SSN hasn't gotten through to background check companies?
- I don't have a criminal record in America (or Britain) so it looks fraudlent.
- They can't find my name matched with SSN or address in police systems.
- I'm not a citizen and only became resident July 2014 after arriving Aug 2013
- My Social Security Number is very fresh (could look like I stole it I guess?).

I have put in an appeal and asked to see the information they have. Would having no information because I'm not a USC be a possibility here?

Anyone had anything like this pop up, that not having a criminal record and a fresh SSN would deny you housing? I'm applying for work now that I have the Green card and SSN, so could this go against me in looking for work?

sir_eccles

You have had a SSN for one month. You have zero credit history. Any check on your credit by someone like Realpage will come up saying you have no credit history. Because they are not used to adults with zero history this likely triggers their systems to question the legitimacy of your SSN.

Assuming you have a credit card right now, you are unlikely to have any history to speak of for at least another 12 months.

Get your wife to sign the lease.

tennesseestud

Wow now that really sucks.

My wife would be signing the lease but the realtor requires these checks for everyone living there. So we both got declined the application, she has my surname afterall. I'd like to get a store card or something, obviously without a job yet I can't pay any balance off and moving home is going to help us with my job prospects, so it's all a bit silly at this point.

I guess we keep looking and see if the realtor doesn't require background checks. We found one that mentioned a drugs test too is that common?

hungryhorace

lol, 'merkins are now requesting a drugs test to rent an apartment? Tell them to go **** themselves. What type of people are they expecting to rent such an apartment for gods sake??

Pulaski

It makes me laugh when I see advice that landlords should only rent to people with "good credit" when most (prospective) tenants have a poor credit history (including a short/ no credit history.)

To the OP: (i) explain to the agent why you have no credit history (new immigrant, newly issued SSN), and (ii) offer a larger deposit/ prepayment of one of more extra months of rent.

GeoffM

We rejected a house rental when the would-be landlord started asking for stupid stuff that was way beyond reasonable. At that point we had a year of credit history. We had an uneasy feeling that if they're asking for that now, how much of an idiot is he going to be during the rental? Quit while you're ahead!

Possibly go to the SSA office and ask for proof of the SSNs belonging to you. We had to do that for our mortgage 15 months after the above, especially since my SSN is not in the "usual range" of new SSNs (there is no such thing as the "usual range" for SSNs).

tennesseestud

It's blooming crazy ennit?! Well we are in a rural location. Them city folks must think everyone is taking Meth out in the woods, which is actually is a huge problem in Tennessee. They're trying to block Sudafed as an over the counter at the moment to crack down on production. We may get wine in supermarkets though soon

The boom in Nashville is partly worrying because property is just being snapped up and hiked up because it's now a hip place to be. Towns and counties too far out from Nashville like ours seem to be dying out because commuting to Nashville sucks and the people are voting down great public transit projects left right and center while driving less than 20mpg trucks ... Oh Tennessee!

tennesseestud

Wow, never knew there was a "usual range of SSN numbers" how very odd. Can you do that with SSA, ask for proof that it's your SSN? It's about a 30 to 45 minute drive out to the social office and I have to get lifts to be taken out there.

tennesseestud

I will mention that to my wife. Thanks for the advice Pulaski ... stay classy

GeoffM

Er... read the bit in brackets. There used to be a methodology or whatever but that was scrapped in 2011. Seems not everybody got the memo in my experience as it's happened several times now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_number

hungryhorace

Heh, you're in Tennessee? Say no more. It's probably the poorest state in the Union.

Pulaski

Until a couple of years ago the first three digits of SSNs were tied to a specific state, then issued in a highly predictable order. So given that, SSNs have been issued at birth since the 1980s and that you can tell to within a year or two (and sometimes less) when the number was issued, anyone who has a SSN that was issued long after the person who says it is theirs was born, will ring alarm bells.

Pulaski

It's definitly behind several others, notably MS and WV and probably SC and AL, and quite possibly AS and LA too.

tennesseestud

One of yeah. Being that the England with Scotland is about the same size of TN, there are 6 million people in TN to be comparable we'd have to have 70 million in the state of TN to be like the UK. If 70 million people lived in TN, we'd be rich.

That's really why it's hard to get infrastructure here because it's so less densly populated and so widely spread, but you do get left alone by people, you're not as crammed in, you can browse birthday card shops that are huge and perhaps have one or two customers and you know the clerk because they might be related to you. Neighbours? You know them because you need to.

It's very different.

tennesseestud

So behind on so many things, but this is just where "the one" lived ya know. We do have really good roads here in TN (apart from 440, let's ignore that one and my god we need them). Alabama has some of the worst main roads I have ever ridden on in my life. We can drive to Florida in half a day to escape it all and at $2.90 a gallon, boom!

It's so backwards because there is so much space here for people, but just not the population density. But yeah the smaller towns are really having a tough time.