Rental Property Investor · White Plains, NY · Member since 2018 · 348 posts · 86 votes
We use a third party to run the credit and application fees. They charge $29.95 for both. We do not collect the money, the third party does. One potential tenant just callled and said we are not allowed to charge $29.95, only $20.00. One, we do not collect the money or even run the report, a third party company does. Two, how is anyone supposed to run a credit and background check for $20.00 in New York State? We do not charge any fees whatsoever, the third party company charges access to the reports. Are we supposed to eat the $9.95 loss each time? This is crazy.
Rental Property Investor · Ithaca(ish), NY · Member since 2016 · 30 posts · 23 votes
6y
The relevant text from the law is:
Do not take the following as legal guidance obviously, as I am not an attorney.
I asked Cozy about this a few weeks ago at the BiggerPockets conference and their answer was that the line "THE LANDLORD, LESSOR, SUB-LESSOR OR GRANTOR SHALL WAIVE THE FEE OR FEES IF THE POTENTIAL TENANT PROVIDES A COPY OF A BACKGROUND CHECK OR CREDIT CHECK CONDUCTED WITHIN THE PAST THIRTY DAYS" allows a landlord to request from the potential tenant a copy of their reports. Such reports can be purchased from a service like Cozy and forwarded to the landlord. The landlord is not charging an application fee, merely directing the potential tenant to a service to purchase their own reports at their own cost.
Chicago, IL · Member since 2018 · 546 posts · 227 votes
6y
I'm inclined to agree with Tim on this. There are a lot of tools/resources out there which can help with tenant screening and the new laws can make some of it confusing (admittedly I'm not based in NY nor am I a lawyer who is well-versed in some of these new NY laws). It sounds like the current law allows a landlord to request from the potential tenant a copy of their reports, but I'm also not a lawyer so hard for me to include my input on this matter. But I believe Tim to be correct -- since you (the landlord) aren't directly charging an application fee, it should be ok because they are purchasing their own reports and sharing the results of those reports with you.
Lender · Boca Raton, FL · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 958 votes
6y
@Account Closed says, I can see a situation where the tenant refuses to get their own report, just because they know they only have to pay you $20 for the same report.
New York has gone from a landlord unfriendly state to a landlords not wanted state. We're the bad guys now, more so than ever.
Rental Property Investor · New York state · Member since 2018 · 20 posts · 8 votes
6y
According to the New Law you can charge up to $20 for Credit Check and $20 for background check. So $29.95 is fine. I have been using COZY and have not had a problem.
I have a question about this - could a landlord simply require the prospective tenant to produce the credit report him- or herself as part of an application package? I am aware there could be risks - ex. people can forge documents. I am only asking if such a requirement would be disallowed under this new law. Thank you for any replies.