Credit Check Application

Q: Is it fair to pay a fee to process an application for a rental? what does a credit check cost the manager? should this be refundable if the applicant is rejected or a credit check is never even done?

A: We had to pay an application fee of something like $75 for one apartment we moved to. A fair portion of the $75 was for the credit check, and the fee was nonrefundable. If they apartment manager runs the credit check, they have to pay the fee to the company, regardless of if your credit was good enough to warrant renting you the apartment of not, so it makes total sense for it it be nonrefundable. There was some part of the $75 that was above the price of the credit check (IIRC the credit check was around $50), and that was for time and effort that the manager spent doing the credit check, calling references (which they DID do), etc. .

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