I get some version of this text about eight times a year across my 9 rental units: my boyfriend is moving in, is that okay? It sounds like a small favor, but an unauthorized second occupant is one of the top three lease problems I deal with as a landlord, right behind late rent and undisclosed pets. Fifteen years of self-managing has taught me that how I answer in the first five minutes decides whether this becomes a smooth addendum or a six-month headache.
My rule is simple and I say it out loud every single time: I never approve on the spot, and I never approve without paperwork. Here’s exactly how I walk through it.
I Never Give a Yes or No in the Moment
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When the text or call comes in, my first reply is always the same 20-word script: thanks for asking first, let me run the standard screening and I’ll have an answer within 3 business days. That pause does two things. It stops an emotional yes I might regret, and it signals to the tenant that adding a name to the lease is a real process, not a formality. In my experience, tenants who are hiding something (an eviction, a broken lease elsewhere) tend to stop responding once they hear the word screening. About 1 in 6 requests simply disappears at this stage.
The Background Check Comes First, Every Time
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I run the same check on a proposed roommate that I ran on the original tenant: credit, a nationwide eviction search, and a criminal background check, which costs me around 3,500 yen per applicant through the screening service I’ve used for 11 years. My minimum credit score cutoff is 620, though I’ll flex to 590 if the income is strong and they agree to an extra security deposit. If someone pushes back on the check itself, that’s usually the clearest answer I get all conversation. I also ask for two months of pay stubs or a recent tax filing, because a credit score alone doesn’t tell me whether the income is steady enough to actually cover their share of the rent. Early on I skipped this step for a friend-of-a-tenant situation, assuming a good vibe on the phone was enough, and that unit sat 5,000 yen short on rent for four straight months before I tightened things up.
The Screening Checklist I Run Before Approving Anyone
I keep this list taped inside my property binder for every unit, and I go through it line by line before I say yes to anyone joining a lease:
- Full rental application from the new person, not just a name and phone number
- Combined household income at least 3 times the monthly rent
- Credit score of 620 or higher, or 590 with an added deposit
- Clean eviction history going back 7 years
- Photo ID and proof of current employment or income
- Signed acknowledgment of house rules, including the no-smoking and quiet-hours clauses
If an applicant clears all six, I move to paperwork within a day or two. If they clear four or five, I’ll usually approve with a higher deposit. Below that, I decline, and I explain exactly which line item fell short so nobody feels blindsided.
Updating the Lease and the Rent
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Adding a roommate almost always means adding rent, and I address this before the background check even finishes so there are no surprises. My standard bump is 8,000 to 12,000 yen per month for a second occupant, which roughly covers the extra water and gas usage I’ve tracked across my properties over the years. I also collect an additional security deposit equal to half a month’s rent, held separately from the original deposit so the accounting stays clean if only one tenant moves out later. Everything gets written into a formal lease addendum that both the original tenant and the new occupant sign, listing the new move-in date, the updated rent figure, and the fact that both parties are now jointly and severally liable for the full amount. I’ve had situations where the original tenant assumed the new person was only responsible for their half, so I now read that liability clause aloud on the phone before anyone signs. The whole addendum process usually takes me about 45 minutes to draft since I reuse a template across all 9 properties, and I always send it over at least 5 days before the planned move-in date so nobody feels rushed into signing something they haven’t actually read.
What I Say When the Answer Is No
Turning someone down is uncomfortable, but I’ve found tenants respect a direct, factual explanation far more than a vague brush-off. I say something like: the screening came back below our minimum on two points, here they are, and here’s what would need to change for me to reconsider in 90 days. I keep a copy of the denial reasoning in the tenant file in case questions come up later. In the roughly 4 years I’ve been running this exact process, I’ve had to say no about a dozen times, and only twice did it lead to any real friction with the existing tenant.
The Move-In Day Reset
Once everything is signed, I treat the new occupant’s move-in almost like a fresh tenant walkthrough. I photograph the unit’s condition again, replace the entry door’s key cylinder for about 6,000 yen in parts if I don’t already have a spare cut, and walk both occupants through the trash schedule and parking assignment since that’s where roommate friction usually starts. It takes maybe 90 minutes of my time, but it resets expectations cleanly and gives me a documented condition baseline in case there’s a dispute down the road.
That’s the exact process I run across all 9 of my properties whenever a tenant wants to add someone to the lease, and it’s saved me from more than one occupancy dispute I used to handle by gut feel alone.
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