CFPB Warns Landlords to Report Renter Activity Accurately

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has put out a new enforcement compliance bulletin  to landlords, property management companies and debt collectors reminding them of their obligations to report consumer information on rentals accurately.

“As pandemic-related government interventions aimed at protecting renters begin to expire over the coming months, the Bureau will be paying particular attention to consumer reporting agencies and furnishers’ compliance with their accuracy and dispute obligations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Regulation V with respect to rental information,” the CFPB said in introducing the initiative.

The CFPB noted it specifically intends to look carefully at the accuracy and dispute-handling practices of credit reporting agencies that report rental information, including whether their procedures to match information to consumers are reasonable; whether they report eviction information that is inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading (such as may result from a failure to have reasonable procedures to report information about the disposition of an eviction filing, to prevent the inclusion of multiple entries for the same eviction action in the same consumer report, or to prevent the inclusion of eviction information that has been sealed or expunged); and whether they conduct timely and reasonable investigations of consumer disputes.

Additionally, the CFPB said it intends to look carefully at the accuracy and dispute-handling practices of furnishers providing rental information to CRAs, including whether they provide information about rental arrearages that include amounts that were already paid on behalf of a tenant or fees or penalties that are prohibited by law and whether they are conducting timely and reasonable investigations of consumer disputes.

While pandemic relief measures have eased evictions, the notice said the Bureau is aware of concerns that some landlords may have evicted tenants in violation of applicable eviction moratoria and that other tenants may have preemptively moved out of rental housing to avoid an eviction filing or been subject to other types of informal evictions outside the judicial eviction process.

The CFPB added it anticipates a rise in homeowners seeking rental housing as pandemic-related mortgage forbearance programs and foreclosure moratoria come to an end.

 Around April the CFPB and the Federal Trade Commission issued a joint statement asserting they would crack down on eviction practices they thought were violating the law.

“Staff at both agencies will be monitoring and investigating eviction practices, particularly by major multistate landlords, eviction management services, and private equity firms, to ensure that they are complying with the law,” their statement read. “Evicting tenants in violation of the CDC, state, or local moratoria, or evicting or threatening to evict them without apprising them of their legal rights under such moratoria, may violate prohibitions against deceptive and unfair practices, including under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act,” the joint memorandum said.