A tenant screening report cost me an apartment
Tenant screening companies are consumer reporting agencies under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, so they must follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy, give you your file and its sources, and reinvestigate when you dispute. If a landlord turned you down because of a report, the landlord must tell you which company made it, and you can get a free copy within 60 days.
You found the apartment, paid the application fee, and waited. Then the email came: the application was declined based on information in a screening report. You have never been evicted. Or you were taken to housing court once and the case was dismissed.
Tenant screening reports are consumer reports, and the companies that sell them answer to the same federal statute as the big credit bureaus. That gives you rights that start the day you are turned down.
Screening companies are covered
The FCRA defines a "nationwide specialty consumer reporting agency" to include companies that compile residential or tenant history (15 U.S.C. § 1681a(w)). Smaller screening companies can be consumer reporting agencies too. Either way, the core duties apply:
- Accuracy. Reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information about you (§ 1681e(b)).
- Disclosure. On request, all the information in your file and its sources (§ 1681g(a)).
- Reinvestigation. A reasonable reinvestigation within 30 days of your dispute, with deletion of anything inaccurate or unverifiable (§ 1681i(a)).
- Time limits. Civil suits and judgments may not be reported after seven years, or the governing limitation period if longer (§ 1681c(a)(2)).
What the landlord owes you
A landlord that turns you down based in whole or part on a consumer report must give you an adverse action notice. It must include the name, address and phone number of the screening company, a statement that the company did not make the decision, and notice of your right to a free copy of the report within 60 days and to dispute it (15 U.S.C. § 1681m(a)).
That free copy is the key. If you ask within 60 days of the notice, the company must give you your file without charge (15 U.S.C. § 1681j(b)). Nationwide specialty companies must also provide a free annual disclosure through a streamlined process (§ 1681j(a)(1)(C)).
Ask for the report within 60 days
Count 60 days from the day you received the denial notice. Request your file in writing from the company named in it, and keep proof of the date.
The errors regulators found
In October 2023 the FTC and CFPB sued TransUnion Rental Screening Solutions and Trans Union LLC in federal court in Colorado and filed a stipulated order requiring $11 million in consumer redress and a $4 million civil penalty. The complaint alleged, among other things:
- Duplicate entries. Each event in an eviction case reported as a separate entry, so one case could look like several.
- Missing outcomes. Records reported without the final disposition, or with dispositions months or years out of date.
- Sealed records. No procedure to keep sealed eviction records out of reports until November 2021.
- Hidden sources. File disclosures that, before June 2021, named only the jurisdiction and not the company that supplied the eviction data.
The companies neither admitted nor denied the allegations. The order required procedures to exclude sealed records, records without a final outcome and duplicate filings. The full account is in the story.
Your claim
An inaccurate screening report that cost you an apartment is the kind of concrete harm the Supreme Court recognized in TransUnion v. Ramirez: a report sent to a third party. For a willful violation the FCRA allows actual damages or statutory damages of $100 to $1,000, plus punitive damages; for a negligent one, actual damages (15 U.S.C. §§ 1681n, 1681o). The FCRA requires a company found liable to pay the consumer's reasonable attorney's fees and costs. File within the earlier of two years after you discover the violation or five years after it occurred (§ 1681p).
Timing matters in these cases. The harm usually happens on the day the landlord reads the report, and the apartment is often gone by the time a dispute is resolved. That is why the record you keep now matters: the listing, the application, the denial notice, the date you learned the reason, and any higher rent or moving cost you paid for the next place you found. Those papers show what the report cost you.
The landlord's own notice duty in § 1681m is limited as a basis for a private suit, so the claim usually runs against the screening company. See tenant screening errors for the full picture.
What to do this week
- Keep the denial notice and the application receipt. Note the date you got the notice.
- Ask the landlord in writing which screening company it used, if the notice does not say.
- Request your free report from that company within 60 days.
- Get the court record. If the report shows a housing case, get the court's own record of the outcome: dismissed, sealed, or satisfied.
- Dispute in writing, attaching the court record. See how to dispute.
Sources: 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681a(w), 1681c(a), 1681e(b), 1681g(a), 1681i, 1681j, 1681m, 1681n, 1681o, 1681p; FTC press release, FTC and CFPB settlement with TransUnion (Oct. 12, 2023), and complaint, No. 1:23-cv-02659 (D. Colo.); TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413 (2021).
Common questions
The landlord did not tell me why I was denied. What can I do?
A landlord that takes adverse action based in whole or part on a consumer report must give you notice, the name, address and phone number of the company that supplied the report, a statement that the company did not make the decision, and notice of your right to a free copy and to dispute. Ask the landlord in writing which screening company it used.
Can a screening company report an eviction case I won or that was sealed?
It must follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy. In a 2023 case, the FTC and CFPB alleged that a major screening company reported sealed records and cases without their final outcome; the stipulated order required procedures to exclude sealed records and records without a final disposition. The company neither admitted nor denied the allegations.
How old can an eviction judgment be and still appear?
Under the FCRA, civil suits and judgments may not be reported once they are more than seven years old, or after the governing limitation period if that is longer, subject to narrow exceptions.
Tell us what they did.
One conversation with an attorney, in your language. We tell you which laws the collector or the credit bureau broke, which deadline runs first, and what to save this week. If it is not a case we can take, we say so and tell you where to go.
(718) 484-7510The FDCPA and the FCRA require a company found liable to pay the consumer’s reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. Our fee arrangement is confirmed in a written retainer before we begin. English, Russian and Spanish in-house; an interpreter for any other language.