Lets assume you have rented a house to a man and woman who claim to be married, even though they have different last names. 6 months later, you begin to get evidence (not proof) they may not be actually married. One possible reason here is the wife is collecting food stamps and disability while her "husband" who has a well paying job and would never qualify for assistance if his income was known.

Now, before I provide any more salacious details here, would you consider this situation none of your business and just ignore it ?

BUT I don't care if someone is legally married unless they gave false names or something to bypass the app process.

Why should I care if they are married or not, as long as the rent is paid on time and they are taking good care of my house?

If I detect any welfare fraud, I will reject an applicant. I've seen a lot of serious fraud in Section 8 tenants.

Married or not does not affect her disability check and qualifying for food stamps does not seem to have much of a boundary. As far as I can see food stamps are handed out to anyone who asks for them. They don't even count your assets. You can own a 10 million dollar house and still qualify for food stamps.

I've had what Ken stated happen before. I had the worker contact me and I said "yes, I've signed them in the past but I haven't seen a paper in over a year". She claimed I just submitted one within the last month or so.

I asked her to forward it to me (which, surprisingly she did) and I told her that it was NOT my signature on there.

Guess what happened? Absolutely nothing. They don't care.

WMH,

We just found out one of our long-term tenants got MARRIED. We don't even know when, don't know her or what she looks like.

It started out years ago with a guy - Coast Guard. Years ago. Then two guys. Then Guy #1 left and Guy #2 stayed and got another Coastie as a roommate. Name on lease but no App.

Repeat this several times until we now have Guy #Bazillion leaving and Guy #Bazillion and Two - with a wife - staying.

I have ZIPPO info on either as it turns out. Luckily they are both filling out the application and signing a new lease.

All I know is he is Coast Guard, and Ds#3 and DH have met him and like him. And I know his name and phone number.

".... I did something yesterday that I regret now but can we just leave it at that?"

NO! Of course not.

Now you have all of us other humans curiosity up.

What did you do and why do you regret it?

I had a tenant years back that had her brother staying with her for a while.

At that time I didn't run applications on all over 18.

Turns out it was her boy-toy, not her brother.

Then months later her hubby finds her and she goes back with him.

She was in the S8 program. Gave me no notice, just bailed. I contacted them and explained what I knew. They pulled her voucher and claimed she would never get another one.

Doubtful, but oh well.

So many people claim fiancé or spouse, when they are just shacking up. I don't care about the marital status. No need to lie to me as I am not passing judgement either way.

Now if they start cheating the systems that my taxes pay for I do get a little upset about it. I will not perjure myself. No signing off on anything that I do not fully believe in. I have a few people getting food stamps. I will gladly send a form letter stating their rent, address, utility responsibilities and such.

Had one lady that wanted me to not say her live in was with her. They have been together for decades. She didn't want to lose her food stamps. Only way I would do it was if he was not on the lease. She agreed, but then I explained that it was a little too close to fraud and I wasn't comfortable with it.

Ok, ok,..I will confess here. These tenants have been with me for 6 months and have never once asked me to do anything for them, until yesterday. The husband called me and said he needed a special one time only favor from me. He asked me to write out a paper receipt for March rent ($950.00) which he paid on March 1st.

However, he asked me to write the paper receipt for only $307.00 which I thought was odd. I asked him about this and he said his wife would submit that receipt to the Food Stamp office to prove that she was paying a portion of the rent. Plus, the lower amount would also help her (somehow) in maintaining her disability payments.

Since I have written many paid rent receipts to other tenants without any explanation, I went ahead and wrote the phony rent receipt for the amount he requested. I mailed it to him in yesterdays mail.

If they get busted for fraud, as they should, will this now make you an accessory to the fraud?

I think you have possibly set yourself up as colluding with them and conspiring to commit fraud, I really do.

It's likely no one used to care, but right now, people are NOT happy with government dollars being spent on fraud, waste and abuse. The mood has changed, the priorities have shifted (that's a good thing.) Government employees are being asked to do their jobs.

Roy, I see a few reasons to avoid this. First, this doesn't benefit you and being a nice guy doesn't count. They'll simply look at you as a pushover. Secondly, the tenant shouldn't even feel comfortable asking you to do this. The fact they did tells me that professional distance has not been established. If there was a professional property management in place, would they have made the same request? Lastly, this compromises your relationship and makes you a part of their scam. Don't be surprised if there aren't problems paying the rent or some other issue in the near term.

I'm not trying to beat up on you as it sounds like you've probably already arrived at some of these conclusions otherwise you wouldn't have regrets. One of the reasons I like text communications is that I have time to think about a response. I don't have f2f interaction unless absolutely necessary.

Bad idea. (Falsifying receipt). I definately would NOT have done it. I think that's crazy to help someone who's not even a friend or family member commit fraud.

Sorry to be so harsh...but this sounds like a crazy move on your part Roy...lots of risk for you with no reward.

If you think something illegal is going on, especially if it linked to welfare, our state has a Fraud, waste and abuse hotline you can call and share what you know with investigators.

I can tell you that up until 45/47, NO one cared about fraud at these agencies. It was "turn your head and cut the check."

Plenty gave some good advice. Paper trail to CYA. Hindsight is 20/20. Woulda/coulda/shoulda!

I like the idea of documenting the total amount so that no future rent payments of lower amount start coming in.

Don't stress over it, hopefully nothing comes of it but you've gotten some ideas from here on future ways to handle any fallout.

I don't write out receipts. They get a receipt either via email, or in the rare occasion I have someone who has bounced a couple of payments and I turn off their auto-debit, they have the receipt from the bank teller with date, time, and amount paid.

So for me, the problem would have never existed.

I do agree with some of the posts above that there is something shady going on. It's too weird of a request just to be done for no reason. Whether you helped them out knowingly or not isn't relevant to me at this point. What is important is they are making requests like this in the first place.

I've said before that I do not think it is possible to compartmentalize crooked behavior in one's life. People either have integrity or they don't. They're not 100% honest here but dishonest over there. So these folks are crooks in other areas as well. It's going to show up.

Check your screening notes. How'd their credit and background look? My guess is... there is evidence that stuff like this has happened in the past. Maybe not direct evidence like a fraud criminal charge, but something that indicates they're gaming the system, bouncing checks, ducking bill collectors, etc.

For now, I'd go dark on any future communication on the matter. Hopefully nothing was sent in written format (i.e. text or email) where they can prove you sent the receipt. Any future requests of this nature will be answered with, "No, I can't do that." Repeat up to three times if necessary then hang up. Or don't answer the phone. "All calls go to voicemail" removes the wheedling and the whining.

Good luck, buddy!

Hmm. They paid via Zelle. That's documented, that's "in writing" at the bank. Tenants also have their receipt at their end, you have yours at your end. (Which is why we like electronic payments -it's all taken care of for you.)

IF IF IF it ever came to an issue of wanting to see records AND the Zelle receipt says $X for RENT and they have been paying $X for rent, but now just one month they say they paid Y in order to give it to food stamp people, it would be hard to have a reason for giving them a hand-written receipt for Y.

Just sayin'. That would take a whole of steps to happen though.

Roy, your sins are forgiven ...

The peep DID pay you $307 .... then they paid you $643.

I will be there waiting on the stories to start flowing.

If ya cant Dazzle them with Brilliance,

Baffle them with BS.

Roy,

(without reading the entire thread)

It is illegal for your to consider their marriage status.

Overall, nunyabiznez

Go fry bigger fish.

BRAD

I learned at an early age that: 1.) I have NO poker face. 2.) I WILL get caught when others don’t. 3.) I cannot keep secrets either. Probably why No 2 happens. (Ok, no 2 happens cuz I eat a healthy high-fibre diet. But the second item in this list happens cuz ‘they can make me talk’. )

So, first time a tenant asked for a sketchy favour, I honestly told them that doesn’t work for me. AND, they will get caught just cuz I always get caught. First time I said it, it was awkward, second time, less so ( different tenant). And less and less. I’ve had tenants tell me I wouldn’t survive in their world. I simply said, maybe they should come to my world, and left them to ponder that!

I learned at an early age that: 1.) I have NO poker face. 2.) I WILL get caught when others don’t. 3.) I cannot keep secrets either. Probably why No 2 happens. (Ok, no 2 happens cuz I eat a healthy high-fibre diet. But the second item in this list happens cuz ‘they can make me talk’. )

So, first time a tenant asked for a sketchy favour, I honestly told them that doesn’t work for me. AND, they will get caught just cuz I always get caught. First time I said it, it was awkward, second time, less so ( different tenant). And less and less. I’ve had tenants tell me I wouldn’t survive in their world. I simply said, maybe they should come to my world, and left them to ponder that!

Quote of the day from Busy:

Don’t let others pull you into their muck!