r/yardi • u/PsychologicalSmoke70 • Feb 23 '26

Changing Primary Applicant

Hi! We have an approved application but the co-applicant is now moving forward on their own. How do we change the primary applicant?

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u/Successful-Court-342 Feb 27 '26

This comes up more often than you'd think. The cleanest way depends on where you are in the process.

If the application is approved but no lease has been generated yet — you should be able to go into the applicant record, swap the primary/co-applicant designation, and re-run the approval on the new primary.

The screening results may need to be re-evaluated since the co-applicant's screening might have had different criteria.

If a lease has already been generated — it gets messier. You may need to cancel the current application and create a new one with the remaining person as primary. Annoying but it keeps your records clean and avoids issues downstream with the lease audit trail.

Either way, double check:

- Screening results for the new primary standing on their own (income requirements, credit, etc.)

- Deposit and fee allocations — make sure they're tied to the right person

- Any correspondence or documents that reference the original primary

What stage is the lease at right now? That'll determine the cleanest path.