City Council Member Mark Levine is set to introduce legislation that would ban city landlords from checking credit scores to decide whether to rent to would-be tenants.
Landlords would be banned from checking credit scores to decide whether to rent to would-be tenants under a new bill being introduced in the City Council.
Councilman Mark Levine’s legislation would also bar a slew of other factors that owners commonly use to pick tenants — including medical debt, consumer debt judgments, and debts that have been sent to collection agencies.
Owners could still run detailed credit reports and use other information on them, including history of bankruptcy, foreclosure, delinquencies on current debt, and how much total debt a tenant owes, to make their decision.
“We don’t want people who have had tough times financially to be blocked out of the housing market. If that happens they’re going to end up in homeless shelters” said Levine (D-Manhattan).
“We don’t want people to end up in housing they can’t afford,” he said. “But we also want to make sure people who had some tough luck but are able to pay aren’t precluded from housing.”
Frank Ricci of the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents landlords, blasted the proposal.
“It’s a ludicrous idea,” he said. “An owner has to have some ability to screen a tenant’s ability to pay the rent.”
He said renting to people who end up deep in arrears would end up hurting other tenants because small landlords wouldn’t be able to afford repairs.
The bill would also prevent landlords from checking medical debt, consumer debt judgments, and debts that have been sent to collection agencies.
“You can put an entire building in jeopardy by having one deadbeat tenant,” he said.
But Levine said landlords would still have ways to determine if a tenant can pay, including by verifying their income.
And he said many of the credit measures he’s singling out are prone to errors.
“Any owner who’s sophisticated enough to be pulling your history is going to be looking for proof of income,” he said.
Some affordable housing developments have had trouble filling their apartments in part because locals who meet the low-income requirements don’t have good enough credit to qualify, he said.
The legislation does not specify a fine, but tenants could bring a complaint under city human rights law if they think they’re being dinged for their credit score.
