We paid in advance for our daughter’s apartment. We did this to make our daughter more desirable as a tenant. It worked.
Rest of Story. Three months later the landlady got amnesia and demanded payment. We had a signed agreement from her “Paid in Full thru _____.” She was pissed because she had spent the entire rent money. Not our problem. Landlady backed off.
Lesson: I wouldn’t do this again
I did that when I first left the Navy in 1993. Rent was $550. Not used to budgeting & not employed, I offered the landlord $500 a month for 12 months upfront. He smiled, shook my hand & said meet him in an hour & the lease will be ready. He even went ahead and marked the spot in front of the front door as mine. No other spots were assigned
I did this because I got a lump payment and felt it would be smart. I was incredibly glad I paid through my bank though because about 6 months in, the land lady tried to start asking me for rent and then asked for proof. I was able to prove the payment through my bank records. It was a cashier check drawn directly from my bank account and printed for her and been cashed. I later found out she had been in a lot of financial troubles and sued a lot. It was a good decision but I was very glad for my bank records.
Over my years as a landlord, I have had 3 occasions when a tenant said they wanted to pay a year in advance. Its a red flag for me.
I told each of them that a decent credit score is a requirement to rent and that they needed to submit a recent credit report.
Two of them simply went away. The 3rd, a retired sheriff, submitted one. She said her status of being a retired LEO and offer to pay a year in advance “should be enough”.
It wasn’t. The woman had a long record of stiffing dentists, veterinarians, utility companies, landscapers, etc. She had a number of charge offs and collection agencies after her. I didn’t have another prospect at the time, but it still didn’t influence my decision to decline her application and avoid massive problems the next year.
My advice to you is not to offer a year in advance unless there is competition for the unit. Then you could ask the lessor if that might give you an edge against the others. But you need good credit no matter what.
You can. I have. I severely regretted it. Long story short: I paid for the year upfront, landlord spent all the money in a month in a half and then insisted I was a scam artist who paid $1200 a month when he was offered $1600 a month from someone else. My landlord would have “prospective tenants” unlock and walk into my house without warning to “view the soon to be available property.” (I still had 6 months paid in full). My landlord called the cops trying to get me escorted off the property. The cops told him I clearly paid in full and was able to provide 2 signed and dated documents for the payments. When that didn’t work, he would spend his days laying on the horn of his 1/2 ton pickup truck, driving his scooter around my house and spraying my windows with the garden hose, constantly yelling obscenities about how I am safe inside but if I come outside it is his property and to tread lightly. The cops were called again and again until they gave me no option in placing a restraining order. So that’s fun. Just don’t do it.
I worked for a property management company and we didn’t allow this (I’m not sure why). But ultimately, I wouldn’t recommend this anyway.
Sometime after I left, the property management company went out of business and it turns out had been behind on payments to many the property owners for several months. The business owner had been using rent money from tenants to pay other bills and was unable to continue to pay the property owners their share (about 90% of the rent goes to the owner).
I could easily see a scenario in which this happens and the property owner has to sell the property because they’re now out that money and can’t afford the mortgage. When this happens, depending on where you live, the new owner does not necessarily have to honor your lease and you could be asked to leave prematurely.
At that point, you’re owed that money back but neither the property management company nor the property owner have the funds to reimburse you. You could sue, but it would take a long time to recover your money if you ever did.
