Rental Application Fee

[Jesse Brennan]

I have just read that it is illegal to charge a rental application fee in Massachusetts. When looking for apartments in the past I paid many of these fees. Shame on me. I’m surprised that so many people charge these fees while it’s illegal. From what I am seeing it can cost between $20-$45 to run a tenants credit, background, and prior evictions. Any tips on how to go about this?

[Rory Gill]

As the landlord in Massachusetts, you should be prepared to absorb the costs for background and credit checks.  Here are some tips, though, to avoid paying for limitless reports for all applicants:

- Pre-screen applicants manually.  If you are aware of their recent addresses in MA, visit masscourts.org and search for the tenants in each district court, superior court, and housing court where they've lived.  Any eviction or other court case should be revealed in the search.  While this may be time consuming, past litigation against landlords (in my opinion) is a more serious concern than general bad credit.

- Call references before ordering the reports.  A negative reference could take that applicant out of the running before you have expended money on him/her.

- Use a report only to confirm an application you are otherwise ready to accept (as opposed to using reports to rank order applicants).  As a best practice, articulate in writing in advance what disqualifying information would be.  Think of all reports as pass/fail as opposed to graded.