Tenant screening reports are a standard feature of the rental application process. These reports provide landlords with comprehensive histories on prospective tenants’ civil court records (with an emphasis on eviction filings), credit history, and criminal records. While the reports are touted as tools to help landlords mitigate risk involved in tenant selection, the reality is that they omit important context, and frequently include inaccurate and misleading information.
Conversely, tenants do not have access to the same depth of information about their prospective landlords. Moreover, the intense competition for limited safe and affordable rental housing stock means that tenants lack the market power to demand it. Many jurisdictions prohibit tools designed to minimize risks to tenants, such as landlord licensure, rental housing registries, and proactive rental inspection. In restricting information available to tenants, while at the same time allowing landlords to collect error-prone information about prospective renters, the law facilitates information asymmetry, thereby centering the concerns of the property owner at the expense of the tenant.
