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No. If an adverse decision is made based on your credit report you are entitled to a copy from the reporting agency, but the landlord does not have to show you anything.
We can't even get a credit report on potential tenants anymore. We have to call a company who provides us a credit score and gives us a synopsis of a persons debts, delinquencies, etc.
We can't even get a credit report on potential tenants anymore. We have to call a company who provides us a credit score and gives us a synopsis of a persons debts, delinquencies, etc.
Not true only true if your not a real company doing business as a landlord? The laws changed a few years ago to make it harder to meet the requirements.
Is the landlord required to show you a copy of your credit report? I don't think so, but you can most certainly ask for a copy. You are the one paying for it.
The thing is many landlords charge for a background check and simply pocket the money.
If you pay for a credit monitoring service they will report any inquiries to you. That way you can verify that a actual credit check was performed.
We can show it but are not obligated to give a copy. We proof that we do indeed check their background.
Since we usually don't run the credit report, only criminal and financial stuff, we are not obligated to provide it. We are charged more for the credit score and we only do it if a tenant claims to have a good or high score since in that case they don't have to pay towards last month rent and so far we haven't come across any one renting with good credit...by going what is on their report we already know that the score is not very good and they all pay towards lm rent.
Is the landlord required to show you a copy of your credit report? I don't think so, but you can most certainly ask for a copy. You are the one paying for it.
The thing is many landlords charge for a background check and simply pocket the money.
If you pay for a credit monitoring service they will report any inquiries to you. That way you can verify that a actual credit check was performed.
I think that what most landlords charge for is an application fee. They may vary in what they do to process the application i.e. obtain a credit report, call for rental history, and "background check" could certainly run the gamut of what is possible to do.
Why do you think that fees are charged then nothing is done? Of the thousands of landlords and property management companies in the country who charge an application fee, I am curious as to how you know "many" of them simply "pocket the fee".
The problem that landlords face - large commercial ones, anyway - is that they are under constant, covert scrutiny by "mystery shoppers" fishing for a lawsuit.
If someone is able to prove that a member of a protected minority group had better credit than a non-member (a white person) yet got denied while the non-minority got approved, they could have a serious claim of discrimination regardless of whether it's real or imagined. Other factors besides race, religion, etc. could have been the deciding factor such as length of time in your current job, verifiable rental history, etc. Even fighting and winning a lawsuit can be very expensive.
Smart landlords keep their approval process played close to the chest, only revealing details by court order. Showing your cards is inviting legal sharks to prey on you.
In conclusion, as with most things seemingly absurd, blame lawyers.
No but you can check your credit report for inquiries to make sure the landlord isn't just pocketing your app fee.
And do what? Is there a law that says a landlord has to run your credit report? The fee is to "process the application" however they see fit.
Eviction is a judgement on public record; I don't need to run your credit to see if you've been evicted (locally, anyway), nor do I need to run it to find out you've got a criminal record. An application could be stopped for any number of reasons before the credit gets pulled and they still have to pay someone to sit there all day answering phones, showing apartments, and taking applications, etc. So what if they "pocket your app fee"?
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