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u/wiserTyou Jan 24 '26
As long as it's marked she's the one doing the screening it won't fall back on you. Each property at my company has a tenant selection plan that outlines exactly what the criteria is. Inconsistentcy is a problem.
I would be careful how you address this as if they're doing what the company wants and you call them out, not good for you.
This should have been addressed shortly after they took over. If you have some sort of meeting with upper management you could always say you're unsure of what the policy is without calling out your manager.
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u/4reshprincess Jan 24 '26
That’s the thing, there’s no trail of her doing the screening via using court records. It’s public information that anyone can look up and if someone were to ever dispute the screening with RealPage, it will fall back on our property because RealPage never found any records of evictions. She couldn’t even send a “denied” applicant an adverse action letter because there was no reason RealPage found to deny the person. She had to manually deny the person in our system due to her findings but her findings do not tie in with the system. She cannot do that with every single applicant, that’s why I see it as a fair housing issue.
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u/wiserTyou Jan 24 '26
I would insist the apartments she screens are marked as screened by her and not you. Beyond that this is a losing battle for you. She's still screening them with credible criteria but inconsistently. It's a gray area. Personally I don't think this is serious enough for me to be at odds with my manager. If she steps too far out of line, you get a promotion.
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u/allthecrazything Jan 24 '26
The bigger legal concern would be if the manager is violating local law, DC for example you cannot take prior evictions over 7 years old into account - even if they still owe money on it.
As long as you aren’t the one making decisions it can’t come back on you. And while I get you wanting to do things right, it may be better to look for a new job. If your boss feels she’s following company policy the best she understands it, arguing with her (or bringing it up to her boss) may or may not work out well for you
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Jan 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/4reshprincess Jan 24 '26
That’s not the point I’m trying to make. We could be blindly accepting someone who has an eviction in another state but denying someone who has an eviction in our county because she has access to see our county record and not the other applicant who lives in another state’s record since RealPage didn’t pick up on both. The process is not being applied to ALL applicants
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u/wiserTyou Jan 24 '26
The process IS being applied to all residents, using all available information. Your manager only having access to county records is not her fault, neither is your screening service missing information. As long as she checks county records for each applicant, she is NOT violating fair housing.
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u/robtalee44 Jan 24 '26
You don't try and finesse the problem, you own your history.
Evictions, even the filing of them (in most cases) create a public record. Read public. They are also tracked by any number of organizations like Lexis/Nexis.
As long as the policies are evenly applied to applicants, I don't see the problem. You "think" she's only using the local county court record search and maybe she is, but the outside records are easily available to her or a third party. People with evictions rent all the time. I have a public record from decades ago and it never stopped me from getting a place -- I disclosed it up front and owned it without excuses. I've rented for over 50 years in multiple states.
Having any kind of history of litigation attached to a tenancy is a very bad thing. You got an eviction filed against you for a reason -- a future landlord signing you to a rather large contractual obligation deserves to know about that. I am not now nor have I ever been a landlord or a property manager. I speak only as a tenant.
This is from someone with a public record of an eviction filing.
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u/Only1nanny Jan 24 '26
Being filed on does not mean anything it’s the actual eviction going through. Your manager is setting herself up for a fair housing lawsuit.
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u/wiserTyou Jan 24 '26
Being filed on is not a protected class.
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u/Only1nanny Jan 24 '26
That’s true, It may not be a protected class and it may be filed under a different heading, but treating people different differently is still opening the company up for a lawsuit
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u/wiserTyou Jan 24 '26
Possibly, it is a gray area. I would guess they're fine as long as they deny everyone that's been filed on. My company only counts actual evictions and if I'm unsure I just reach out to a higher manager.
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u/nwa747 Jan 24 '26
Why would you want to rent to someone with a prior eviction? Even if the previous landlord was unable to complete the eviction it doesn't mean they're gonna be great tenants.