State Specific Question About: ILLINOIS (IL)

Getting ready to submit my first report to credit bureaus for unpaid rent, late fees and damages, on this site. Any suggestions? I have tenants that have moved out that never paid their last months rent. So I have late fees and unpaid rent. I have their SD and will need to apply a portion of that for damages. There were 2 adults, that are married, living there. Do I have to file 2 reports-1 pp, or is one sufficient? This cost ME money to do-so want to make it as cost effective as possible-but want them to be reported.

Do they have jobs? Are you going to try to get the money from them before just reporting it (which is just pretty much throwing it away unless you get VERY lucky and, one day, they decide that they care about their credit scores)? While reporting it is one PART of what you can do -- there are actually usually more important options to do first.

That being said... once you do decide to do it, some thoughts:

1. Yes, you'd want to put it against EACH of them so that it shows up on both of their reports.

2. Many would say to NOT do this until you have a court money judgement against them. If they see this on their report and deny it is accurate, it will become very difficult for you to "prove" it without a legal money judgement.

3. The amount should be the amount actually owed AFTER you've subtracted and kept their S/D to cover part of the damages/back-rent.

4. There really is no rush at this. I'd get everything else taken care of first and then file it. Heck, they aren't likely to even know it is there for a long time (possibly years). Most people do not check their own reports regularly. They won't get a letter or anything saying it is on there, for example.

How much are we talking here? If it is significant, then you should take them to small claims for whatever is left so that you have a money judgement against them.

- John...

LP, I've used the service on this site. A few recommendations.

1) You want to report BOTH debtors. You will pay $12.95 (or whatever the per person fee is now). Why do this? Your couple may divorce next week... you want to be able to go after BOTH of them. Also, this way you ensure that they BOTH get tagged any time ONE of them tries to apply for financing of some sort. Plenty of renters out there are savvy enough that once hubby has terrible credit, they apply for utilities in just the wife's name...once wife's credit is terrible, they apply in the kids' names. Etc. Tag as many parties as possible. It's only $13...seriously, you spent more on a hamburger at Applebees last Friday. Don't cheap out on pursuing your money.

2) It would be best if you can find them, get them served, and get a judgment. Otherwise, they can dispute your report and if you have no good evidence the debt is owed (like a judgment from a court), it will be removed and you get to spend $13 * 2 AGAIN.

3) SSN, Date of Birth, your rental address should be sufficient to report the debt.

4) Handling the security deposit. It was a little unclear what your plan was to do here, so this may be overkill. Apologies in advance if I'm beating a dead horse. Make sure you do everything according to your state's laws. Yes, clean up the place & do repairs, then add up the unpaid rent, the late fees, the repairs/cleaning charges and apply their deposit to the BALANCE DUE. The remaining BALANCE DUE after that is the amount that should be reported to the credit bureau. Don't be tempted to do the novice LL things and "just keep" the deposit and then report the entire balance due as if the deposit never existed. To reiterate: You need to apply the deposit towards the balance due and only report the unpaid amount to the bureau.

Good luck.

Great info. I will start the judgement. Never done this before either-guess I have been lucky. I will now have to figure out how to go about this first.

And it does say when you submit to credit report that they send them a collections notice. So they do know it will be on their credit.