8-7-2023
HB23-1099: Portable Screening Report for Residential Leases (effective Aug. 7, 2023)
Requires landlords to accept a “portable tenant screening report” as part of the application process, in which case the landlord may not charge the prospective tenant an application fee. A portable tenant screening report includes information about the applicant from a consumer reporting agency, including the applicant’s:
Name;
Contact information;
Verification of employment and income;
Last-known address; and
Rental, credit, and criminal background histories, in compliance with Colorado law.
Landlords may require that the portable tenant screening report meet certain criteria, including that the report was:
Completed within the last 30 days;
Made directly available to the landlord by the consumer reporting agency or through a third-party website regularly engaged in the business of providing consumer reports, in compliance with all applicable consumer reporting laws;
Provided to the landlord at no cost; and
A statement from the prospective tenant that there has not been any material change in the information provided in the report.
Before taking any rental application for which the landlord would typically charge an application fee, landlords must advise applicants that they have a right to obtain a portable tenant screening report. Required language, timing, and placement of the advisement is included in the statute.
Landlords are exempt from these requirements if the landlord:
Does not accept more than one application fee at a time for a dwelling unit, or if a dwelling unit is rented to more than one occupant, does not accept more than one application fee at a time from each prospective tenant or tenant group for the dwelling unit; and
Refunds the total amount of the application fee to each prospective tenant within twenty calendar days after written communication from either the landlord or landlord’s agent or the prospective tenant declining to enter into a lease agreement for the dwelling unit.
Such information will be verified to include the person that is verfying the verified information. The process will require applicate to provide the detail and give the potential landlord 72 hours to verify.