Housing Sense Blogger, Kim Skobba
Several years ago, I conducted a study on tenant screening agencies, which came about due to concerns over their reporting inaccuracies. The study highlighted the vulnerability of renters who are last to know about the information being reported and yet are left with the damaging consequences when negative information appears.
Tenant screening reports are a tool used to evaluate prospective by the majority of landlords in Minnesota. Tenant screening agencies amass large amounts of credit history and public records data quickly and efficiently. Collecting data in this way keeps costs down while giving landlords the sense that no stone has been left unturned. While this is an effective business model, it results in a system in which renters are often judged based on reports that contain inaccurate and misleading information.
The reporting of eviction actions is an important example. Currently, tenant screening agencies are allowed to report evictions regardless of whether the landlord wins in court. The majority of evictions end in settlement, meaning that many renters are unnecessarily carrying negative information that will have a significant impact on their ability to obtain rental housing.
The fact that eviction actions carry such weight makes the tenant screening system open to abuse. An article in The Yale Law Journal states that screening reports are open to abuse “not only because they make the threat of eviction action a stronger tool for disciplining tenants (because the action will be ‘reported’) but also because the item on the report is fundamentally a description of the landlord’s actions rather than the tenant’s actions.”
The Tenants Bill of Rights legislation includes a provision that would limit tenant screening companies to reporting evictions only when the landlord wins in court. This legislation would increase both the accuracy and fairness of tenant screening reports. It will also remove a barrier for the poor, women, and people of color – the three populations who are disproportionately affected by eviction and thus face a higher risk of being excluded from rental housing due to a misleading tenant screening report.
Check out Kim’s great blog: Housing Sense
