9 ms·

Is anyone else concerned that the screening report just has yes/no for existence of landlord-tenant court records? Regardless of whether the tenant won (or even

Is anyone else concerned that the screening report just has yes/no for existence of landlord-tenant court records? Regardless of whether the tenant won (or even started, it could be the landlord getting sued for security deposit for example) the case.

lookalike74 5y ago
The yes/no in some cases could allow fixed-income people to be approved when they are short of the required income or credit history because they've never had a rental problem. A lot of fixed-income seniors pay a large portion of their income to rent but have done so reliably for decades, for example.
- dont__panic 5y ago
  That would also be addressed by a more detailed explanation of court records, or a binary yes/no of whether the tenant was ultimately found guilty of a transgression against previous landlords, no? The previous comment is pointing out that this could be a problem if you've been sued by an unscrupulous landlord in the past. That problem exists for fixed income people as well.
  - kragen 5y ago
    BTW, you were right that Pebble used those memory LCDs in their smartwatches. Unfortunately I can't reply to your comment from that time. Thanks for letting me know!
- kazinator 5y ago
  The point is that this yes/no datum is going to be interpreted as a black stain, regardless of what it means. A landlord reviewing 50 applications for a place isn't going to go into the particulars. Depending on the landlord's approach, anything with a yes won't make the short list. Credit reports should not have suspicious stains whose meaning could be that there is in fact nothing wrong (there was a dispute which was caused by someone else, and resolved in the applicant's favor).
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    The obvious solution is the one I've long advocated in this forum and elsewhere: a housing market where landlords can pick and choose tenants should not be permitted to exist. Build housing until the median number of applicants for a vacant home becomes 1 or 0. Make landlords desperate again.
    - trashcan01 5y ago
      If landlords aren’t allowed to pick tenants, then: 1. Bad tenants will have no incentive not to harm the property and the neighborhood. 2. Landlords will be forced to pay for insurance to cover all the bad things that tenants are now free to do. 3. Rents will rise to cover the costs of the insurance. Conscientious tenants will be penalized. 4. Even otherwise conscientious tenants will start to cut corners since they are having to pay for the insurance anyway and it’s clearly unfair. What a nasty situation for conscientious tenants landlords and neighbors you are advocating. Only the least conscientious people win.
      - gpderetta 5y ago
        You can make the exact symmetrical argument if tenants are not allowed to pick landlords (which is what happen in practice). Well, except about rent increase that happens anyways.
        kazinator 5y ago
        Tenants cannot pick an arbitrary landlord L for a given, fixed rental unit U. They can pick a different rental unit with a different L.
        TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
        Tenants pick what they can afford. Landlords charge what the market can bear. The entirely predictable result is some very rich landlords and some very homeless people.
- function_seven 5y ago
  So now that I know about these records, I better think twice before asserting my rights as a tenant. If my landlord decides to steal my deposit, ignore the leaky roof, and refuse to fix the furnace, I'll just roll over and take it. Can't have a "Yes" on my permanent record; won't be able to rent in the future!
  - phil21 5y ago
    This has been the advice for quite some time. Just having court cases on your record can be seen as a black mark for both housing and some employers regardless of you winning them or their merit. It's not a majority yet, but it's been slowly eating it's way into these sectors for the past couple decades. Similar "scores" are being silently enacted for such trivial things like returning merchandise to retail stores. Stores now share information and will outright reject returns if you are deemed to have done too many returns in the past at a totally unrelated business. Leave town with a $2 bank balance and forget to close the account out? Good luck getting a new bank account for the next 7 years with the "minimum account balance" fees drawing it into the negative regardless of fixing the oversight when notified. Same for chargebacks on your credit card - chargeback more than then the calculated long-term EV of your account and you will find the process all of a sudden becomes very difficult and your account is likely closed shortly thereafter. Same goes with Amazon - have a high value account that does $50k/yr in purchases? Returns are always granted no questions asked. Low value? You will start seeing pushback from customer service very quickly and account closure regardless of the validity or reasons for return. The above are all examples I've personally experienced or witnessed. Airline mileage programs that turned into revenue programs are likely where most of this ends up. Companies simply will stop servicing low EV customers altogether on an individual vs. the group basis as it's done now.
    - taylortrusty 5y ago
      Honest question: what's wrong with any of these examples?
      - CogitoCogito 5y ago
dantillberg 5y ago
Indeed, though is there any protected status in the US for "people that make use of the court system" that would bar such discrimination? As a landlord, legal costs will eat into your margins real fast. The landlord uses this service to gauge their own risk taking this person on as a tenant, and the presumption (accurate, I'd imagine) is that past landlord-tenant court records predicts a higher chance that this landlord will incur legal costs (and possibly also negative judgments) with this tenant as well. Personally, I certainly don't like this practice as a prospective tenant, but it would nonetheless be tempting to consider using it were I a landlord.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > it would nonetheless be tempting to consider using it were I a landlord. Of course it would. I still don't like this practice. > is there any protected status in the US for "people that make use of the court system" that would bar such discrimination? There are certain laws that protect people who use the court system in some ways, but there is not (to my knowledge) a general protection. But whistleblowers, litigants in harassment claims, etc. have anti-retaliatory protections.
  - j_walter 5y ago
    Would it be considered retaliation to not hire a candidate who was a whistleblower at their previous company though?
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      I do not think the whistleblower has any right to legal protection outside their previous company. Which means they may have to work there for life.
    - bwestergard 5y ago
      If the whistle-blower acted in concert with even one other coworker, and made it clear to all that their actions were concerted, and the whistleblowing was itself legal (e.g. not divulging a trade secret for the sole purpose or harming the employer), then the refusal to hire such a worker could be a violation of 8(a)1 of the National Labor Relations Act. But this would be hard to demonstrate in most circumstances.
AzN1337c0d3r 5y ago
I've sued a landlord because their contracted towing company illegally took my car. I won that case and got my towing fees back but I guess there's a stain on my record now even though this is really the landlord's fault for picking a shitty towing company who can't even follow state non-consent towing laws.
- sircastor 5y ago
  Why did you sue your landlord instead of the towing company?
  - AzN1337c0d3r 5y ago
    That’s how it works. Legally they are the ones who authorized the tow through their contract.
jacquesm 5y ago
That's exactly the kind of tenant they don't want! So from the landlords perspective whether you won or lost is irrelevant, if you lost you were a 'bad renter' and if you won then you are apparently savvy enough to beat a landlord in court which has to be like kryptonite to them, they are lying awake in bed at night worrying about the existence of such tenants.

lookalike74 5y ago

The yes/no in some cases could allow fixed-income people to be approved when they are short of the required income or credit history because they've never had a rental problem. A lot of fixed-income seniors pay a large portion of their income to rent but have done so reliably for decades, for example.

dont__panic 5y ago
That would also be addressed by a more detailed explanation of court records, or a binary yes/no of whether the tenant was ultimately found guilty of a transgression against previous landlords, no? The previous comment is pointing out that this could be a problem if you've been sued by an unscrupulous landlord in the past. That problem exists for fixed income people as well.
- kragen 5y ago
  BTW, you were right that Pebble used those memory LCDs in their smartwatches. Unfortunately I can't reply to your comment from that time. Thanks for letting me know!
kazinator 5y ago
The point is that this yes/no datum is going to be interpreted as a black stain, regardless of what it means. A landlord reviewing 50 applications for a place isn't going to go into the particulars. Depending on the landlord's approach, anything with a yes won't make the short list. Credit reports should not have suspicious stains whose meaning could be that there is in fact nothing wrong (there was a dispute which was caused by someone else, and resolved in the applicant's favor).
- jeffbee 5y ago
  The obvious solution is the one I've long advocated in this forum and elsewhere: a housing market where landlords can pick and choose tenants should not be permitted to exist. Build housing until the median number of applicants for a vacant home becomes 1 or 0. Make landlords desperate again.
  - trashcan01 5y ago
    If landlords aren’t allowed to pick tenants, then: 1. Bad tenants will have no incentive not to harm the property and the neighborhood. 2. Landlords will be forced to pay for insurance to cover all the bad things that tenants are now free to do. 3. Rents will rise to cover the costs of the insurance. Conscientious tenants will be penalized. 4. Even otherwise conscientious tenants will start to cut corners since they are having to pay for the insurance anyway and it’s clearly unfair. What a nasty situation for conscientious tenants landlords and neighbors you are advocating. Only the least conscientious people win.
    - gpderetta 5y ago
      You can make the exact symmetrical argument if tenants are not allowed to pick landlords (which is what happen in practice). Well, except about rent increase that happens anyways.
      - kazinator 5y ago
        Tenants cannot pick an arbitrary landlord L for a given, fixed rental unit U. They can pick a different rental unit with a different L.
        TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
        Tenants pick what they can afford. Landlords charge what the market can bear. The entirely predictable result is some very rich landlords and some very homeless people.
function_seven 5y ago
So now that I know about these records, I better think twice before asserting my rights as a tenant. If my landlord decides to steal my deposit, ignore the leaky roof, and refuse to fix the furnace, I'll just roll over and take it. Can't have a "Yes" on my permanent record; won't be able to rent in the future!
- phil21 5y ago
  This has been the advice for quite some time. Just having court cases on your record can be seen as a black mark for both housing and some employers regardless of you winning them or their merit. It's not a majority yet, but it's been slowly eating it's way into these sectors for the past couple decades. Similar "scores" are being silently enacted for such trivial things like returning merchandise to retail stores. Stores now share information and will outright reject returns if you are deemed to have done too many returns in the past at a totally unrelated business. Leave town with a $2 bank balance and forget to close the account out? Good luck getting a new bank account for the next 7 years with the "minimum account balance" fees drawing it into the negative regardless of fixing the oversight when notified. Same for chargebacks on your credit card - chargeback more than then the calculated long-term EV of your account and you will find the process all of a sudden becomes very difficult and your account is likely closed shortly thereafter. Same goes with Amazon - have a high value account that does $50k/yr in purchases? Returns are always granted no questions asked. Low value? You will start seeing pushback from customer service very quickly and account closure regardless of the validity or reasons for return. The above are all examples I've personally experienced or witnessed. Airline mileage programs that turned into revenue programs are likely where most of this ends up. Companies simply will stop servicing low EV customers altogether on an individual vs. the group basis as it's done now.
  - taylortrusty 5y ago
    Honest question: what's wrong with any of these examples?
    - CogitoCogito 5y ago

dantillberg 5y ago

Indeed, though is there any protected status in the US for "people that make use of the court system" that would bar such discrimination? As a landlord, legal costs will eat into your margins real fast. The landlord uses this service to gauge their own risk taking this person on as a tenant, and the presumption (accurate, I'd imagine) is that past landlord-tenant court records predicts a higher chance that this landlord will incur legal costs (and possibly also negative judgments) with this tenant as well. Personally, I certainly don't like this practice as a prospective tenant, but it would nonetheless be tempting to consider using it were I a landlord.

HWR_14 5y ago
> it would nonetheless be tempting to consider using it were I a landlord. Of course it would. I still don't like this practice. > is there any protected status in the US for "people that make use of the court system" that would bar such discrimination? There are certain laws that protect people who use the court system in some ways, but there is not (to my knowledge) a general protection. But whistleblowers, litigants in harassment claims, etc. have anti-retaliatory protections.
- j_walter 5y ago
  Would it be considered retaliation to not hire a candidate who was a whistleblower at their previous company though?
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    I do not think the whistleblower has any right to legal protection outside their previous company. Which means they may have to work there for life.
  - bwestergard 5y ago
    If the whistle-blower acted in concert with even one other coworker, and made it clear to all that their actions were concerted, and the whistleblowing was itself legal (e.g. not divulging a trade secret for the sole purpose or harming the employer), then the refusal to hire such a worker could be a violation of 8(a)1 of the National Labor Relations Act. But this would be hard to demonstrate in most circumstances.

AzN1337c0d3r 5y ago

I've sued a landlord because their contracted towing company illegally took my car. I won that case and got my towing fees back but I guess there's a stain on my record now even though this is really the landlord's fault for picking a shitty towing company who can't even follow state non-consent towing laws.

sircastor 5y ago
Why did you sue your landlord instead of the towing company?
- AzN1337c0d3r 5y ago
  That’s how it works. Legally they are the ones who authorized the tow through their contract.

jacquesm 5y ago

That's exactly the kind of tenant they don't want! So from the landlords perspective whether you won or lost is irrelevant, if you lost you were a 'bad renter' and if you won then you are apparently savvy enough to beat a landlord in court which has to be like kryptonite to them, they are lying awake in bed at night worrying about the existence of such tenants.