Chapter 2: Tenant Screening
Before you look for a place to live it is important to understand how landlords do tenant screening and what rights you have.
Landlords have the right to screen tenants and choose who lives in an apartment. But tenant screening must be based on legal factors that will predict that you will be a good tenant. Sometimes, landlords and management companies use illegal factors. The factors can be illegal if they discriminate against a protected class of people. See Chapter 7: Discrimination.
For Example
It is illegal for a landlord to ask you about your race, religion, age, sexual preference, or whether you have children or are pregnant. Although, in some circumstances, a landlord can refuse to rent to a family with children if the landlord is 65 years old or older or is ill and having children in a 2 or 3 family house would be a hardship.
Sometimes landlords use information that does not show whether you will be a good tenant. For example, when a landlord uses a credit score to deny you a tenancy and does not consider that you always paid your rent on time. This can be illegal discrimination.
Landlords also use court eviction records to screen tenants. Tenants are rejected just because they were at some point involved in a court case. In May 2025, a new law will go into effect that will allow tenants to seal a court eviction record based on the outcome of their case. A landlord that rejects all tenants who have had any court involvement without considering what occurred in court may be using illegal discriminatory screening criteria.1 If this occurs you should contact an advocate or the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination if you are a member of a protected class.
If the landlord gets information from a tenant screening report, the landlord must tell you the reason for the denial, what the source of the information was, and how to obtain your own copy of the report.
Landlords do not need your permission to obtain a tenant screening or other consumer report.2 However, if a landlord denies you housing based on the report, they must give you a written notice telling you the name of the credit or tenant screening agency that provided the report and how to contact that agency to obtain a copy of the report.3
If your application for an apartment is denied, ask the landlord why. You may be able to convince the landlord that you should not be rejected for that reason.
Also, ask the landlord whether they used a tenant screening agency and, if so, what the name of the company is. There are many tenant screening agencies, and this may be your only real way of finding out what company is distributing information about you so that you can either get wrong information corrected or try to change information that is misleading. See the section in this chapter Your Right to Challenge the Accuracy of a Consumer Report.4
This chapter gives you information to help you protect yourself during the tenant screening process if you are searching for an apartment in the private market.
If you are applying for public or subsidized housing there are specific rules about tenant screening. See Finding Public and Subsidized Housing.
Go to the table of contents, or download this chapter as a PDF below.
For a summary of this chapter, see our overview article and 2-page handout.
For eviction records see Guidance on Application of the Fair Housing Act to the Screening of Applicants for Rental Housing (Pages 19-20). In regard to criminal records see April 4, 2016 HUD Guidance on Use of Criminal Records by Housing Providers at: https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/hud_ogcguidappfhastandcr.pdf (page 6).
G.L. c. 93, §51(a)(3)(v) gives a consumer reporting agency the authority to give a "consumer report" to a person using the information in connection with the rental of residential property. While landlords can obtain what is defined as a "consumer report" without the consumer's permission, landlords cannot obtain what is defined as an "investigate consumer report" without the consumer's permission. See G.L. c. 93, §53. An "investigative consumer report" is a report that includes information about a "person's character, general reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of living" obtained through personal interviews. See G.L. c. 93, §50. A "consumer report" is limited to credit information and cannot include specific information listed in the law. See G.L. c. 93, §52. Note: There is also a federal law that regulates consumer reports and provides protections for consumers called the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. §1681 et seq. For more information about this law, see Fair Credit Reporting, published by the National Consumer Law Center and available for sale online at: https://shop.consumerlaw.org/index.asp under "Publications for Lawyers."
Laws that regulate credit reporting agencies do not apply to a prospective landlord obtaining a reference from your prior landlords or from another source, such as the Massachusetts Trial Court’s online database.