Where to Begin—A Guide to Off-Campus Living
Before You Sign the Lease
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Now that you’ve finally found the perfect place, make sure to protect yourself. The single most important step to take is to READ YOUR LEASE thoroughly and understand the provisions. Don’t simply “skim over” the lease or skip parts that sound like legal mumbo-jumbo -- those are the provisions that will inevitably come back to haunt you. Be assertive and take the time to understand what you will be paying and what your obligations will be. A prospective landlord that demands that you sign your lease before you have had an opportunity to read it thoroughly or who pushes you into signing a lease by threatening that someone else will take the property should raise doubts in your mind about the property as well as the landlord.
Lease Applications
At the same time you obtain a copy of the lease from your landlord, she may want you to fill out a lease application. Lease applications are fairly standard and a normal part of the leasing process. The application may or may not bind you to the lease, so you will need to be very clear on the provisions and parameters of any lease application. In addition, there is usually a relatively nominal fee that is associated with a lease application, which is used to cover the landlord’s administrative expenses and costs of checking you out. Be specifically aware of any provision in a lease application that says you will be responsible for paying monetary damages if your lease application is approved by the landlord, but you fail to sign the lease thereafter.
Generally, a lease application is a way for the landlord to obtain background information from you to determine whether you will be a responsible tenant. Lease applications can be very short or quite extensive, even requiring you to sign an authorization for the landlord to obtain confidential information about you, such as past employment history, credit history, and even a criminal background check. While the landlord will want to obtain as much information about your financial resources, it is not a good idea to give specific bank account numbers, credit card information, or any other confidential information you do not wish to disclose. Instead, offer to provide the landlord with a copy of your most recent bank or credit card statement and you can then black out any information you do not wish to be made public.
Check out your Landlord
Just as the landlord wants to find out information about you, you should find out as much information as possible about your landlord. When the landlord showed the property to you, did he have a pre-scheduled appointment or did he just walk into the property? One of the best ways to get information is to speak with the current tenants. However he deals with the current tenants is how he will most likely deal with you during your tenancy. If the specific property you are looking at is vacant, find other listings offered by the same landlord and talk with those tenants. You can also check out the Better Business Bureau, the Boulder Board of Realtors, and even the local courts to see if your prospective landlord has been involved in litigation with prior tenants.
As mentioned above, assuming you are satisfied with your background check of the landlord, you should understand your lease before you sign it. Once you sign a lease, it is a legally binding contract and you can and will be held to compliance with the provisions of the lease. While there is no such thing as a “standard” lease (although the Boulder Model Lease comes about as close as you can get), there are general fundamental principles and concepts applicable to all leasing relationships, some more important than others. In order to assist in reading through your lease, we have summarized some of these concepts for you in The Guide.