Renting in Ontario, cosigners?

[taryn31]

My brother and his wife + two kids are trying to rent but everywhere they go, the property management requests that someone cosigns. I understand why, unfortunately my brother does not (even though he is a prime example why they ask for cosigners) - they are horrible at managing their money properly. Their credit is good/clean and I would cosign for them, but they already owe me hundreds of dollars and I would probably kill them if they missed a month or did anything that would impact my credit (which is flawless).

What are their options? Is a cosigner mandatory everywhere or is it more of a "to each their own"? The only thing I can think of is to speak to [the property manager] and my lawyer and have a contract & agreement that says I will be their cosigner for a maximum of six months and then my name is removed from the the rental lease.

Thanks for any input.

[larenzo]

He is not telling the truth. He or she has very bad credit.
IF not, this is an even bigger warning.
This means that their income cannot support a rent payment
^ landlords know when you are going to get over your head

Either way, you need to avoid this situation. Get involved and you'll regret it
I promise you that
No such thing as signing for only 6 months
Either their income is too low for that place or they have bad credit
That' won't change just in 6 months
What do you think the reason they are being turned down is? Think about it
* debt to income ratio - an extremely important number

[clem84]

It is an each to their own but if ones credit is past a certain condition you don't need to research far to gather the consensus. Some times a landlord can be swayed if the tenant is more vested in the contract, thus appearing to represent less of a risk. To accomplish this he would need to make a substantial increased offer towards the security deposit.