Rental Services, Inc. 2019 May Newsletter

May is here and I have an update on a few of the legal issues we discussed last month. I thought it would be beneficial to discuss how to dispose of credit reports and other sensitive information contained in a background check. 

As mentioned in last month’s newsletter, Colorado HB19-1106 has passed and will take effect August 2, 2019. RSI has received several calls from clients looking to add reference calls or run additional criminal reports so they can keep the application fees at a higher level. If you need to discuss any of these options, make sure to give us a call.

Colorado HB19-1118 has passed and will go into effect once it is signed by the governor on May 12, 2019. This is the bill that changes the 3 days’ notice to a 10 days’ notice. It is recommended that you contact your attorney to review eviction time frames and make sure you have the correct legal forms. If you need an attorney referral, please visit the RSI website and use the Information Center tab.

A similar bill pertaining to the time allowed to cure a lease violation recently passed in Washington. The bill passed with a 14 days’ notice requirement. I point this out because Colorado started with 14 days’ notice and because of local opposition was changed to a 10 days’ notice. So, if you think 10 days was bad imagine 14 days.

Colorado HB19-1170 has passed and will take effect August 2, 2019. The bill addresses changes to Warranty of Habitability. The bill sets time frames for handling the acknowledgement of issues and setting time frames for repairs. It even details requirements for putting residents up in a hotel. I didn’t talk about this bill a lot in other newsletters because it is very technical. It is recommended that you review your lease and make sure you have a policy in place for handling complaints.

SB-19-225 Rent Stabilization was laid over. Based on the amount of time left in this legislative session the bill will not make it through the Senate and House and is affectively dead. However, this bill could easily pop up next year.

On a different note, how have you been disposing of sensitive information?

When an account is established with RSI, a service agreement is signed. In that agreement it discusses how the release and screening report must be stored for five years, but what do you do with the information when the five years is up? If you don’t need it, you need to destroy it.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires anyone that has requested a consumer report to securely dispose of the information when they are done with it. Destruction of information requires that it cannot be reassembled. The best ways to accomplish this task is using a cross cut shredder to destroy documents.

If you have a paperless office and save reports to a computer, the information must be deleted and not stored on any backup devices after five years.

If you would like to avoid the hassle of storing and destroying information, we recommend using the RSI Quick App. RSI will store the rental application and release securely online after the applicant applies. The completed background check is available to view on the RSI website and all information is purged from the system after five years. Using this process RSI takes on the burden of compliance. If you use the RSI Quick App and RSI website but still print information to keep a copy on file, you are opening yourself up to unnecessary liability.