All Forum Posts by: Ariel O.

@David Jay

Completely legit to use Facebook for screening. I see it more in employment then I do in tenant screening, but it's 100% kosher.

If you have a tenant with a valid visa they've already undergone a thorough background check by DHS/State before the visa was issued. You should also be able to search based on name/dob if they've been arrested since they got here. Keep in mind many jurisdictions do not always have DoB so be on the lookout for false positives.

@Alexis W.

Got it - no adverse action notice if they don't actually screen. Decent enough on their part to save you the time and money. Anybody who rents at scale will generally have set criteria and will not deviate because of FHA..

@Alexis W.

So this is interesting - how does it show up on the background check? Are you receiving Adverse Action notices?

Your best bet is usually with an individual landlord or less desirable property. Smaller landlords can be more flexible on their criteria [or don't screen at all], whereas usually the owner of the management company will lock the employees in to a specific decision tree to avoid FHA suits.

@Alexis W.

Also, this is not legal advice, go find a competent FL Lawyer and get the record sealed/expunged.

Witholding adjudication is a Florida specific thing and seems to mean you were never formally convicted, so it may not show up on a record beyond the arrest. How you decide to approach it with the specific property owner is up to you, but from reading quickly online you may legally able to say you were never convicted of a crime.

Regardless it's worth it to get the record sealed/expunged, if not for renting then also for future employment checks and the like

I am not going to address the presumption of innocence here, every owner/manager/agent has different standards

Legally speaking you can show arrests without convictions for up to 7 years back in most states under the FCRA. Notably California is one where you can't do this.

In the industry you will find reporting these things varies widely from company to company. In fact at the most recent conference the results were all over the place in a survey they did.

Speaking for us, We generally show going back 7 years , and then only if the charge has not been dismissed [i.e. charge is still pending or ended in conviction]. If there are larger owners/managers with specific different requirements that are within the law we will try and accommodate.

@Cliff Odom

I agree. That being said, the FCRA is a federal law and is not restricted to the less landlord friendly states or the more landlord friendly state. You might just get a more sympathetic judge/jury.

Ari

@Aly W.

Do you send them an adverse action notice, though? Or just tell them to call the screening company?

@Ayodeji Kuponiyi

In the future if it's not specifically adverse action and you're 100% sure I would just send a one  line email/text:

Dear X,

Unfortunately your rental application was denied.

Ayodeji Kuponiyi

No risk of suits then. If you do it because of info reported as mentioned, then it's adverse action letter all the way through.

The thing that really scares me in this thread, and @Steve Babiak touched on it briefly, is everyone here is willy-nilly writing a rejection letter that could get them into serious legal trouble.

@Ayodeji Kuponiyi

When you reject a tenant because of information from a criminal, credit or investigative report [investigative would cover income and employment verification through a third party], you must provide an adverse action notice, which has specific requirements.

The law allows you to  do it verbally but almost everyone sends a letter. The letter needs to say the form of the adverse action, where the data is coming from, that the screening company was not involved in making the decision, and how they can dispute and get a copy of their report. If you used a credit score as well then there are certain additional factors you need to add: credit score, score range, negative factors influencing score (and mentioning too many inquiries if that is a factor].

BTW if you have set standards in terms of screening you pretty much cover your FHA issues too by being obviously non discriminatory.

@Fred Heller I think there has to be some consistent job history. If they were jumping every 3 months from job to job that might be a problem. I'd want some consistency over time, no?

Finally, the application fee is a fee with multiple components:

1. Paying the tenant screening service for their time, data, platform etc
2. Your time to process the application
3. Any compliance time associated with the application [for example the FCRA letter]
4. Paying for the shredding service to come in and shred applications
5. and it goes on..

Why should that be refundable? I realize it gets expensive if you apply for 8 places, but perhaps it serves a purpose as well in bringing in serious applicants only [where allowed by state law etc]

I would love for there to be a universal repository trusted by all across the board so applicants would only have to pay once every 30 days or something [and of course I would want that to be us, heh], but I think for all sorts of reasons in a competitive marketplace that's not going to happen. 

Each property owner/manager has their own standards and wants to have their own data and solution to evaluate a tenant. I know some real estate agents and landlords will allow a tenant to bring their own report from annualcreditreport.com, but that doesn't really scale if you do volume.

@Ayodeji Kuponiyi