Massachusetts Tenant Screening Laws: The Landlord and Applicant Guide

Massachusetts tenant screening sits at the crossroads of federal and state law: the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, which governs how a consumer report may be pulled and used everywhere in the country, and a distinctive Massachusetts overlay that is stricter than most states. Massachusetts is one of only two states, with Vermont, that effectively bans landlord application and screening fees. It protects Section 8 voucher holders and other public-assistance recipients as a matter of statewide law, regulates criminal-record access through the CORI system, and, as of May 2025, lets tenants seal old eviction records so they cannot be used against them. The landlords who screen properly almost never face a lawsuit; the ones who charge an illegal fee or skip the adverse-action notice pay for that shortcut.

This guide walks the whole framework in plain English: the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act requirements every landlord must meet, the Massachusetts General Laws chapter 186, section 15B rule that no application or screening fee may be charged, credit-check consent and cost rules, source-of-income protection under chapter 151B, the CORI and criminal-record standard, the new chapter 239, section 16 eviction-record sealing law, fair housing, applicant rights, a day-by-day workflow, a compliance playbook, real scenarios, and a Massachusetts-specific set of frequently asked questions.

Because Massachusetts layers strong state protections on top of the federal baseline, the safest posture for a landlord is written consent, consistent written criteria, no prohibited fees, and proper adverse-action notices every single time, and the strongest position for an applicant is to know exactly which rights the law confers. Treat every figure and date here as a starting point and verify the current statute before you screen, decline an applicant, or dispute a decision.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act, codified at fifteen U.S.C. section 1681, is the federal statute that governs tenant screening nationwide, and a Massachusetts landlord must comply with it regardless of any state-law differences. Massachusetts has its own consumer credit reporting statute at chapter 93, sections 50 through 68, and it is worth knowing exactly how far it reaches: its written adverse-action disclosure at chapter 93, section 62(a) is triggered only where credit or insurance for personal, family or household purposes, or employment is denied or terminated — a residential rental denial is not on that list, so section 62 adds nothing to a rental decision. Getting the federal layer and the genuine Massachusetts layers right prevents almost all screening-related liability. The core is short, and every point below is load-bearing. Read them precisely, because the most common error on landlord pages lives here: the FCRA’s two-step pre-adverse-action procedure is an employment rule (15 U.S.C. section 1681b(b)(3)) and does not reach a tenancy, while Massachusetts adds its own genuine pre-denial step for criminal-history decisions under 803 CMR 5.14(1), set out in the CORI section below.

Permissible Purpose

A landlord has a permissible purpose under Fair Credit Reporting Act section 604(a) to pull a consumer report on a rental applicant. That is the threshold right to obtain the report at all, but it does not eliminate any of the other requirements — it only opens the door to a report the landlord must then handle correctly.

Written Consent

Get written consent before obtaining a consumer report — but be precise about where that duty comes from. The FCRA’s stand-alone written disclosure and authorization rule at section 1681b(b)(2) applies only to reports procured for employment purposes. A landlord’s federal authority to pull the report is permissible purpose under section 604(a)(3)(F)(i), which the statute does not condition on the applicant’s signature. Written consent is nonetheless the operating standard, and skipping it is a serious mistake: every Fair Credit Reporting Act compliant screening company requires the landlord to certify permissible purpose and to hold the applicant’s signed authorization, and that signature is what proves the applicant initiated the transaction. Massachusetts agrees on that federal point from its own side: chapter 93, section 51(a)(3)(v) expressly excepts the rental or lease of residential property from the written-permission proviso the state consumer credit reporting statute imposes on other property transactions. “Clear and conspicuous” is the section 1681b(b)(2)(A)(i) employment formality and has no federal housing source, so this page does not state it as a housing rule.

But Massachusetts supplies a stand-alone-document mandate of its own, and it covers the exact workflow this page recommends. Under 803 CMR 5.15(1)(a), before a consumer reporting agency may request CORI from DCJIS on the housing entity’s behalf, the landlord, property management company, real estate agent, or public housing authority shall: register for an iCORI account and designate the agency (5.15(1)(a)1); notify the housing applicant “in writing and in a separate document consisting solely of this notice” that a consumer report may be used in the housing decision making process (5.15(1)(a)2); obtain the applicant’s “separate written authorization to conduct background screening” before asking the agency for the report, and the regulation adds that the entity “shall not substitute the CORI Acknowledgment Form for this written authorization” (5.15(1)(a)3); and obtain a signed CORI Acknowledgment Form and complete identity verification (5.15(1)(a)4). The entity must also certify to the agency that it complies with the FCRA and will not misuse the report (5.15(1)(b)1–2). So if you use a screening company and CORI is in scope — the normal Massachusetts arrangement — the stand-alone consent document is a state requirement, not a best practice, and it is three separate pieces of paper: the stand-alone notice, the separate written authorization, and the CORI Acknowledgment Form (803 CMR 5.06(1)), which cannot do the authorization’s job.

Consistent Criteria

Written screening criteria must be applied consistently to every applicant. Inconsistency creates both Fair Credit Reporting Act disparate-treatment exposure and Fair Housing Act and chapter 151B liability, because bending the rule for one applicant and not another is powerful evidence of discrimination even where none was intended.

No Federal Pre-Adverse Action Step

The Fair Credit Reporting Act does not require a landlord to warn the applicant, hand over the report, or wait before denying. The pre-adverse-action procedure — give the consumer a copy of the report and the Bureau’s written summary of rights, then wait — is 15 U.S.C. section 1681b(b)(3), and that subsection applies by its own terms only in using a consumer report for employment purposes. Renting a home is not an employment purpose: section 1681a(h) defines employment purposes as evaluating a consumer for employment, promotion, reassignment, or retention as an employee. Federal law sets no waiting period in housing, and no federal statute or regulation fixes any number of days — there is no five-business-day federal rule, in housing or in employment. The Federal Trade Commission’s own landlord guidance has exactly two steps, Before You Get a Consumer Report and After You Take an Adverse Action, and it never uses the phrase pre-adverse action; it points landlords to section 1681m(a). Massachusetts is different, and the difference is real rather than cosmetic: 803 CMR 5.14(1) does require a pre-adverse action disclosure before a criminal-history denial, with a copy of the consumer report and the Summary of Rights. That is state law, not the FCRA, and it is set out in full under Criminal Records and CORI below.

Adverse Action Notice

When a consumer report contributes in whole or in part to an adverse action, 15 U.S.C. section 1681m(a) requires the landlord to give the applicant an adverse-action notice after the decision. The notice must state the name, address, and telephone number of the consumer reporting agency that furnished the report; that the agency did not make the decision and cannot explain the specific reasons for it; that the applicant may obtain a free copy of the report from that agency within sixty days; and that the applicant may dispute anything inaccurate or incomplete in it. If a numerical credit score was used, section 1681m(a)(2) also requires disclosing the score, its source and date, the range of scores under that model, and the key factors that adversely affected it. The notice may be oral, written, or electronic; the Federal Trade Commission calls written notice the best practice, not a legal requirement. Note what section 1681m(a) does not require: it does not require the landlord to enclose the report or the summary of rights, and it sets no deadline before the decision — the applicant’s route to the report is the free copy from the agency. This step is not optional, and it applies to any adverse action — not only an outright denial, but also a higher deposit, a higher rent, or a co-signer or other added condition driven by the report. Do not expect Massachusetts to add a second notice here. The state consumer credit reporting statute’s ten-business-day written disclosure, chapter 93, section 62(a), runs only where credit or insurance for personal, family or household purposes, or employment is denied or terminated. A rental denial is outside it, so on a Massachusetts tenancy the section 1681m(a) notice is the adverse-action duty — and 803 CMR 5.14(1), below, is the separate pre-denial duty that applies only to criminal history.

How much can a Massachusetts landlord charge for an application or screening fee?

Nothing. Massachusetts is one of the only states in the country — along with Vermont — that effectively bans landlord application and screening fees outright. Under Massachusetts General Laws chapter 186, section 15B, before a tenancy begins a landlord may lawfully collect only four things: the first month’s rent, the last month’s rent, a security deposit no greater than one month’s rent, and the actual cost of purchasing and installing a new lock and key. An application fee, a credit-check fee, a background-check fee, an amenity or move-in fee, or a holding fee is not one of the four permitted categories, so charging it is unlawful. The statute is published at Massachusetts General Laws chapter 186, section 15B.

The practical consequence for screening is direct: the landlord, not the applicant, pays for the screening report. A landlord may absolutely run a credit report, a criminal background check, and an eviction and rental-history check — the landlord simply absorbs the cost as a business expense and cannot bill it to the applicant. The old “a licensed broker may still charge the tenant” answer is out of date. As amended by 2025 Mass. Acts c. 9, §§ 54 and 55, effective August 1, 2025, section 15B(1)(b) now reads that “no lessor or agent of the lessor may require a tenant or prospective tenant to pay, to the lessor or to an agent of the lessor, any amount in excess of” the four permitted categories. A broker working for the landlord is an agent of the lessor, so that broker may no longer bill the prospective tenant a fee. What survives is narrow: a fee charged by a broker the tenant engaged, on the tenant’s own side of the transaction. Either way a broker fee is not a screening fee, and a landlord acting as their own agent cannot use it to recover the report cost.

Can a Massachusetts landlord run a credit check?

Yes — a Massachusetts landlord may run a credit check and other consumer reports, provided the landlord has the applicant’s written consent and does not charge the applicant for it. The report must come from a Fair Credit Reporting Act compliant consumer reporting agency, which verifies the landlord’s permissible purpose. Massachusetts has its own consumer credit reporting statute at chapter 93, sections 50 through 68, which parallels the federal law — but read its scope before relying on it. Its written adverse-action disclosure, chapter 93, section 62(a), applies when credit or insurance for personal, family or household purposes, or employment is denied or terminated because of a consumer report. A rental denial is not in that list, so a landlord’s adverse-action duty on a tenancy is the federal section 1681m(a) notice, not a chapter 93 notice. Chapter 93 cuts the other way on consent, too: section 51(a)(3)(v) expressly excepts the rental or lease of residential property from the written-permission proviso it imposes on other property transactions.

Two Massachusetts-specific points matter. First, because chapter 186, section 15B forbids passing the cost to the applicant, the landlord budgets the report cost rather than collecting it. Second, the applicant’s file may include a sealed eviction record that may not be reported under the 2025 sealing law described below, so a landlord should treat a screening report as a starting point, not the last word, and give the applicant a chance to explain an item before acting on it. Applicants can learn to spot problems early using our guide to red flags in a rental application, which cuts both ways.

Can a Massachusetts landlord refuse a Section 8 voucher?

No. One of the most consequential Massachusetts rules for screening is source-of-income protection under Massachusetts General Laws chapter 151B, section 4. It is unlawful for a landlord to refuse to rent, to advertise a no-Section-8 policy, or to apply different or harsher screening because an applicant intends to pay part of the rent with a Housing Choice Voucher, other federal, state, or local rental assistance, a rental supplement, or public-assistance income. A landlord also may not refuse to comply with a reasonable requirement of the voucher program, such as a routine housing-quality inspection. Enforcement runs through the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, and, in Boston, the city’s fair housing office.

This does not strip the landlord of the right to screen. The landlord may still apply neutral, consistent criteria — credit, rental history, and income measured against the tenant’s own share of the rent — to a voucher holder exactly as to any other applicant. What the law forbids is treating the voucher itself as a disqualifier or steering voucher holders away. A common and costly mistake is calculating an income multiplier against the full contract rent rather than the tenant’s out-of-pocket share, which screens out voucher holders as a group and exposes the landlord to a source-of-income claim. Narrow owner-occupied small-building exemptions may apply, so confirm coverage for the specific property.

Can a landlord reject an applicant based on a criminal record in Massachusetts?

A Massachusetts landlord may consider criminal history, but only through an individualized assessment — never a blanket rule that automatically rejects anyone with any record. Landlords obtain criminal records through the state iCORI system, operated by the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services under Massachusetts General Laws chapter 6, sections 167 through 178B, and only after the applicant signs a CORI Acknowledgment Form, which 803 CMR 5.06(1) requires before a CORI request is submitted. The final-step rule is a binding regulation, not advice. 803 CMR 5.04(2) provides that “CORI shall only be requested for a housing applicant as the final step in the application process,” and 803 CMR 5.05(3) imposes the identical mandate on a public housing authority or property management company screening for subsidized housing. So CORI is run on the applicant the landlord would otherwise approve — pulling records on everyone at intake is not merely bad practice, it is a violation of 803 CMR 5.04(2).

On top of the CORI access rules, an overbroad criminal-record policy can still create Fair Housing Act exposure under the discriminatory-effects rule at 24 CFR 100.500, reinstated effective May 1, 2023, under which liability may be established where a facially neutral practice causes a discriminatory effect that the housing provider cannot show is necessary to achieve a substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interest, and where a less discriminatory alternative would serve that interest. Section 100.500 is a burden-shifting litigation standard: it imposes no individualized-assessment step and no pre-denial notice of its own, and it is currently the subject of a pending HUD proposal to remove it, which has not changed the regulation. Note what is no longer current. HUD’s 2016 Office of General Counsel guidance on the use of criminal records — the source of the individualized-assessment framing that still circulates on landlord blogs — was withdrawn effective September 25, 2025 (Federal Register, Notice of the Withdrawal of OGC Guidance Documents, Docket No. FR-6617-N-01, published July 17, 2026), and its 2022 implementation memo was withdrawn effective September 17, 2025. The Fair Housing Act itself, and disparate-impact liability under it, are unchanged. Massachusetts does not have a statewide ban-the-box statute for private housing — the ban-the-box law at chapter 151B, section 4 applies to employment applications — but state-aided and public housing operate under stricter lookback limits set by Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities regulations. When criminal history is considered, weigh these factors and document the analysis.

The Assessment Factors

• Nature and severity of the offense. A decades-old shoplifting conviction differs materially from a recent violent crime.
• Time since the conviction. More recent offenses carry more predictive weight; very old convictions may have little probative value.
• Evidence of rehabilitation. Consistent employment, completed parole or probation, continuing education, or recovery documentation can rebut the presumption of risk.
• Relevance to tenancy. The offense should bear on the specific risk — violent or property crimes bear more directly than a traffic or minor drug-possession offense might.
• Consistent application. Apply the same analysis to every applicant with any criminal history; selectivity creates disparate-treatment exposure.

The Massachusetts Pre-Adverse Action Disclosure: 803 CMR 5.14(1)

This is the step Massachusetts adds that federal law does not, and it is the one most often mis-described as a Fair Credit Reporting Act rule. Under 803 CMR 5.14(1) — the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services regulation titled Adverse Housing Decision Based on CORI or Other Criminal History Information — before taking adverse action on an individual’s application for housing based on CORI or criminal history information, a landlord, property management company, or real estate agent shall:

• Comply with applicable federal and state laws and regulations — 803 CMR 5.14(1)(a).
• Notify the housing applicant of the potential adverse housing action, in person, by telephone, by fax, or by electronic or hard-copy correspondence — 5.14(1)(b).
• If the criminal history came from a consumer reporting agency, provide a pre-adverse action disclosure that includes a copy of the housing applicant’s consumer report and a copy of A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, published by the Federal Trade Commission and obtained from the agency — 5.14(1)(c). This is the provision that genuinely requires the report copy and the Summary of Rights in Massachusetts. It is a Massachusetts regulation, not the FCRA.
• Provide a copy of the CORI or other criminal history and disclose its source — 5.14(1)(d).
• Provide a copy of the entity’s CORI Policy, if applicable — 5.14(1)(e).
• Identify the information that is the basis for the potential adverse action — 5.14(1)(f).
• Provide the applicant with the opportunity to dispute the accuracy of the information — 5.14(1)(g).
• Provide DCJIS information on the process for correcting CORI, where CORI is considered as part of the potential adverse action — 5.14(1)(h).
• Document all steps taken to comply — 5.14(1)(i).

803 CMR 5.00 applies to landlords, real estate agents, public housing authorities, and property management companies that request CORI to screen applicants for the rental or lease of housing (803 CMR 5.01(2)). The text the Commonwealth publishes today is dated June 11, 2021, and its regulatory authority is M.G.L. c. 6, §§ 167A and 172. A public housing authority or property management company administering a subsidized housing program follows the parallel list at 803 CMR 5.14(2), which carries the same pre-adverse action disclosure and substitutes information on the process to appeal the adverse decision.

The statute behind the regulation reaches further. Massachusetts General Laws chapter 6, section 171A provides that in connection with any decision regarding employment, volunteer opportunities, housing, or professional licensing, a person in possession of an applicant’s criminal offender record information shall provide the applicant with the criminal history record in that person’s possession — whether obtained from the Department or any other source — prior to questioning the applicant about their criminal history, and again if the decision is adverse on the basis of that history. Read the proviso that follows, because it relieves the second delivery: section 171A adds that “if the person has provided the applicant with a copy of his criminal offender record information prior to questioning the person is not required to provide the information a second time in connection with an adverse decision based on this information.” The parallel regulation, 803 CMR 5.10(1), states the duty as two occasions — before asking any questions about the criminal history, and before making an adverse housing decision based on it — and carries no such proviso, so the safe operating rule is to deliver the record and its source at both points. A person who annually conducts five or more criminal background investigations must maintain a written CORI policy providing that it will notify the applicant of the potential adverse decision, provide a copy of the criminal offender record information and the policy, and provide information concerning the process for correcting a criminal record.

Can a landlord see a sealed eviction record in Massachusetts?

No. The Affordable Homes Act, signed into law in August 2024, created a Massachusetts eviction-record sealing process codified at chapter 239, section 16, effective May 5, 2025. Once an eviction case is sealed, it comes off tenant-screening and credit reports and a consumer reporting agency must remove it within thirty days of the sealing (section 16(i)). It is closed to ordinary public court access, though not absolutely: under section 16(f) a court may, on motion and for good cause, still release a sealed record for public-safety, scholarly, educational, journalistic, or governmental purposes, with the parties’ personal identifying information kept sealed unless the court finds release necessary. An applicant with a sealed record may lawfully answer “no record” when asked about prior evictions, and housing and credit applications must now carry a notice telling applicants that a person with a sealed record may answer “no record” to a question about that record. Be precise about the remedies, because they do not all run against the landlord. Section 16(i)’s private action — actual damages, costs, and reasonable attorney’s fees — runs against a consumer reporting agency that fails to drop a sealed record, and the Attorney General enforces that subsection. For an application that omits the required “no record” notice, section 16(j) gives no private remedy at all: no party is liable unless the Attorney General has first issued a written warning and the party has failed to fix it within 90 days. A landlord’s real exposure for using a sealed record therefore comes from the fair-housing and consumer-protection routes, not from a section 16 damages claim.

When can a Massachusetts tenant seal an eviction record?

Eligibility depends on the case type, and every path starts from the same precondition: the action must have concluded, including exhaustion of all rights of appeal. A case that was dismissed or ended in judgment for the tenant may be petitioned at any time after that point, and section 16(e1/2) says the court may, in its discretion, process the petition administratively without a hearing — discretionary, not automatic. A no-fault eviction carries no waiting period at all: section 16(b) allows a petition “at any time after the conclusion of the action, including exhaustion of all rights of appeal,” and where no party objects within seven days the court may process it administratively. A nonpayment-of-rent case may be sealed once the judgment is satisfied, or after four years with a hardship showing. A fault eviction may be sealed after at least seven years, and certain cases under chapter 139, section 19 after seven years with a hearing. For a landlord, the operational rule is simple: do not screen on, ask about, or act on a sealed eviction record, and update your application forms to include the required “no record” notice.

The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing based on seven federally protected classes, and Massachusetts General Laws chapter 151B adds a substantially longer list. Screening criteria must be facially neutral, predictive of tenancy success, and consistently applied, and they must not produce a disparate impact on any protected class — a criterion that looks neutral but disproportionately excludes a protected group can still be unlawful.

Federal Protected Classes

The Fair Housing Act protects race and color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status meaning the presence of children, and disability whether mental or physical. Be careful with the federal attribution on sexual orientation and gender identity. HUD’s memorandum Application to the Fair Housing Act of the Supreme Court’s Decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, dated February 9, 2021, was withdrawn effective September 25, 2025 — it is another entry in the same withdrawal table, in the same notice, as the 2016 criminal-records guidance (Federal Register, Notice of the Withdrawal of OGC Guidance Documents, Docket No. FR-6617-N-01, published July 17, 2026). Withdrawing a guidance document does not amend the Fair Housing Act or overrule a court, so this page does not tell you the statute changed; it tells you there is no current HUD guidance to cite for that reading. In Massachusetts the federal question does not decide the case anyway. Massachusetts General Laws chapter 151B, section 4 names gender identity and sexual orientation expressly in its rental-housing prohibitions — paragraph 6 for publicly assisted, multiple-dwelling, and contiguously located housing and paragraph 7 for other covered housing accommodations — and chapter 151B is the law that binds a Massachusetts landlord. In Massachusetts, source of income is protected statewide on top of all of these.

Massachusetts’s Expanded Protections

Chapter 151B layers on additional protected characteristics, including source of income and receipt of public assistance or rental subsidy, marital status, age, ancestry, genetic information, military or veteran status, and gender identity and sexual orientation as independent state classes — both named on the face of chapter 151B, section 4 in the rental-housing paragraphs, so neither depends on any federal agency’s reading of the word sex. Massachusetts’s list is among the broadest in the country, which is why criteria that pass muster elsewhere can still create liability here.

Common Massachusetts Fair-Housing Traps

• Blanket criminal-history bans that auto-reject any record, which violate the disparate-impact doctrine and the CORI rules.
• Rigid credit-score cutoffs applied with no individualized review of the applicant’s full picture.
• Income multipliers measured against full contract rent, which exclude voucher holders and single parents.
• No-Section-8 policies, which are unlawful under chapter 151B source-of-income protection.
• Charging an application or screening fee, which violates chapter 186, section 15B.
• Screening on a sealed eviction record, which violates chapter 239, section 16.

Massachusetts applicants have strong federal rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, supplemented by state-level protection under 803 CMR 5.00 and the eviction-sealing law at chapter 239, section 16. Understanding these rights matters for applicants who want to contest an inaccurate report and for landlords who want to avoid liability.

The Core Rights

• Right to a stand-alone written notice and a separate written authorization, where a screening company obtains CORI. The FCRA’s stand-alone disclosure-and-authorization mandate at section 1681b(b)(2) is an employment rule, so the landlord’s federal authority to pull the report is permissible purpose rather than the signature. Massachusetts supplies the mandate the FCRA does not. Under 803 CMR 5.15(1)(a)2 and 3, before a consumer reporting agency may request CORI on the housing entity’s behalf, the applicant must be notified in writing and in a separate document consisting solely of this notice that a consumer report may be used in the housing decision, and must give a separate written authorization to conduct background screening — and the regulation says the CORI Acknowledgment Form may not be substituted for that authorization. A signed CORI Acknowledgment Form is separately required by 803 CMR 5.06(1). An applicant asked to consent may decline and withdraw.
• Right to a fee-free process. Under chapter 186, section 15B the applicant cannot be charged an application or screening fee at all.
• Right to an adverse-action notice. If the report causes any adverse action — rejection, a higher deposit, or added requirements — the applicant is owed a notice identifying the consumer reporting agency and explaining dispute rights.
• Right to a free copy of the report. When an adverse action is taken, the applicant may obtain a free copy of the report from the agency, generally within sixty days.
• Right to the Massachusetts pre-adverse disclosure in a criminal-history denial. Before an adverse housing decision based on CORI or other criminal history, 803 CMR 5.14(1) entitles the applicant to notice of the potential adverse action, a copy of the criminal record and its source, identification of the information that is the basis for the action, an opportunity to dispute its accuracy, DCJIS correction information, and — where a screening company supplied the record — a copy of the consumer report and A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This is Massachusetts law, not the FCRA, and it does not apply to a denial driven only by credit, income, or rental history.
• Right to dispute inaccuracies. The applicant may dispute inaccurate information with the agency, which must investigate, generally within thirty days, and correct or remove anything it cannot substantiate.
• Right to a sealed record. A tenant with a sealed eviction record may answer “no record,” and that record may not be reported or used.

A disciplined, day-by-day workflow is what turns the legal requirements into a repeatable process that consistently produces defensible decisions. The exact timing can flex, but the sequence — disclose, consent, report, decide, notice — should not. A fuller walkthrough of each stage lives in our how to screen a tenant step-by-step guide, and the underlying paperwork is covered in our rental application guide for landlords.

The rules become concrete when applied to real situations. Each of the following turns on the same handful of principles — no illegal fee, written consent, the adverse-action notice, consistent criteria, source-of-income protection, individualized criminal review, and sealed-record protection. A deeper treatment of the criminal-history piece is in our guide to criminal history in tenant screening.

Massachusetts landlords who follow this playbook virtually never face a Fair Credit Reporting Act, fair-housing, or fee-ban claim. The list is short, but every item is load-bearing. Build it into your standard operating procedure and the liability largely disappears.

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