Can You Rent An Apartment With A Domestic Violence Charge?
Can You Rent An Apartment With A Domestic Violence Charge? A domestic violence conviction or conviction will not disqualify you from every apartment community, but you should be prepared for rejection during your housing search.
Any criminal convictions can hurt your chances of getting an apartment rental. Violation charges make renting apartments even more difficult.
Check our guide below for more details.
Also see: What Happens After You Get Approved For Section 8?
Can You Rent An Apartment With A Domestic Violence Charge 2024?
Whether you can find an apartment to rent with domestic violence coverage depends on the tenant acceptance criteria used by apartment managers in the communities you apply to.
The Fair Housing Act does not allow landlords to use blanket bans on tenants with criminal convictions, but landlords are free to disqualify certain crimes. Disqualifying offenses are those that have a direct impact on the conduct and safety of other tenants or threaten the landlord’s property or financial interests.
Tenant acceptance criteria will vary from apartment community to apartment community. When you are looking for an apartment, you can find the tenant screening policy on the apartment’s website, you can also email the principal office and ask them to send a copy of the standard of their acceptance.
Why Landlords May Reject You
Domestic violence covers a wide range of behaviors, at least one landlord may be concerned about heated arguments disrupting the peace of other tenants.
Other serious concerns include calling the police to the property, violent behavior towards employees or other tenants, and harming staff.
The level of your domestic violence charges will also be a factor that affects your chances of approval. Renting with misdemeanors can often be easier because misdemeanors are less serious than serious penalties.
How Old Is Your Domestic Violence Charge?
Some states have a time limit for reporting criminal convictions on a background check, for example, your state may not allow the reporting of convictions that are more than 7 years old.
If your domestic violence charge is related to a previous offense, you do not need to worry about your conviction when applying for a time on your state’s criminal history record.
How To Rent With A Domestic Violence Charge
When you’re looking for a home with domestic violence compensation, it’s easier to get approved to rent a house than an apartment.
Apartment managers will develop policies to protect them from legal liability that may arise if an employee or other tenant is harmed.
For rental property landlords, these concerns are less. It doesn’t mean that the first house you apply for will get approved to rent, but overall the chances are higher.
Houses don’t have to be more expensive than apartments and can even cost less.
Small-time landlords who fill their leases may also be more willing to look at situations beyond your penalty.
Because domestic violence is such a broad term, if your charge doesn’t involve physical violence or property damage, the landlord may be happy to let you rent.
Some people renting a property in less desirable neighborhoods may not care about housing charges, it all depends on.
Good places to find more understanding landlords are your local Craigslist website and Facebook Marketplace.
Be Prepared To Explain Your Charge
Since most landlords and property managers strike a background check, you can save yourself a lot of wasted application fees if you bring up your domestic violence allegations before you fill out the application.
If your allegations are serious, an explanation of what happened can help ease your concerns about renting.
Quick Recap
No law prohibits tenants with domestic violence charges from renting apartments. Landlords and property managers may reject your rental application because of your conviction if they do not include domestic violence or violent crimes in their disqualification criteria.
Apartment communities have stricter restrictions than landlords with rental properties, so focusing your housing search on single-family homes and townhomes for rent may be your best strategy.
If your allegation of domestic violence is serious, explaining what happened can help you come to terms with it.
