When a housing provider relies on an inaccurate tenant screening report to refuse to accept an applicant as a tenant, the applicant can take steps to dispute that report under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).1 Housing providers must comply with FCRA’s adverse action requirements by furnishing the name, address, and telephone number of the tenant screening or consumer reporting agency to the applicant.2 Within 60 days of the denial of housing, applicants have the right to request a free copy of the screening or consumer file directly from the tenant screening company.3 Once the applicant has obtained the file from the tenant screening company, they may write a dispute letter asking the company to reinvestigate or delete inaccurate information. Upon receiving the dispute, the tenant screening company has 30 days to conduct a reinvestigation (and more time if the information was purchased from another consumer reporting agency).4 Once the applicant receives written notice of the reinvestigation’s outcome, complete with the updated file, the applicant may then request that the screening company notify the housing provider of any updates.5
Due to the time it takes to use the FRCA dispute process to correct inaccurate screening information, tenants will rarely succeed in reversing a landlord’s decision to refuse to rent the unit at issue. However, disputing inaccurate information may prevent the prospective tenant from being denied leases in the future.