Landlord ran a credit check post rejection

Submitted by DietMediocre8993 t3_10p7zyt in jerseycity

I have been living at an apartment since June 2022 on sub-lease. The other tenants who were on the lease are moving out and I was interested to take over the lease.

However, the landlord and the management company rejected my application when they found out that I was sub-leasing the bedroom and that is the reason I got from the management in the email.

However, I got an email from my bank after her rejection that she ran a credit check on my application. I am new in the country so am not aware of laws, but I have to assume that it is wrong of her to run a credit check after she has already denied my application?

Even if let's say she ran a credit check before rejecting (there is a gap of 3 minutes) before credit check and her latest response. She did not deny because of credit score. Is there anything that I can do?

For ref: My Experian credit score is 745, I don't think it's that bad?

PS: Let me give some more info: The management agent since Friday have been ardent in asking us to leave at the end of February, today she gave a final rejection quoting sub-lease as the reason, nothing about credit score. And then I get a credit check report from her. So I have to assume, that it at least takes a few minute to do a credit check?!

Any advice what I can do now?

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HappyArtichoke7729 t1_j6ivilp wrote

The systems that generated the email could have easily taken more than 3 minutes to complete.

If it's not a synchronous task on the web server, it's often put in the low priority pipeline to either be done periodically in batches or just whenever traffic is lower.

Emails also need to go through complicated spam-rejection algorithms, and part of making those effective can be a time delay. (Example: hold the mail for a couple minutes to make sure you didn't send the same thing to 10,000 other people)

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DietMediocre8993 OP t1_j6ivoak wrote

But i have to assume it's unethical, because she has solely been saying no because of sub-lease thing since Friday and still ran a credit check today (Monday)?

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HappyArtichoke7729 t1_j6iw2n2 wrote

Assumptions are often incorrect.

Also correct me if I'm wrong, but you also said you broke the lease terms. I'm not sure why you're surprised. You were likely technically trespassing, as you didn't have permission to live there from the property owner. That itself is unethical.

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DietMediocre8993 OP t1_j6iwl8u wrote

Yes you are right on that part, but I was not told that the original tenants are not allowed to sublease the apartment. I should've asked now that I have learned that something like this could happen. But genuinely I did not know about this situation.

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DirectorBeneficial48 t1_j6iu7sb wrote

Maybe I'm missing something here, but if there was only a gap of 3 minutes between the rejection and the bank email, then have you not considered the possibility that merely the bank was slow in sending you the email

>However, I got an email from my bank after her rejection that she ran a credit check on my application. I am new in the country so am not aware of laws, but I have to assume that it is wrong of her to run a credit check after she has already denied my application?
>
>Even if let's say she ran a credit check before rejecting (there is a gap of 3 minutes) before credit check and her latest response.

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DietMediocre8993 OP t1_j6iujg8 wrote

Let me give some more info: The management agent since Friday have been ardent in asking us to leave at the end of February, today she gave a final rejection quoting sub-lease as the reason, nothing about credit score. And then I get a credit check report from her. So I have to assume, that it at least takes a few minute to do a credit check?!

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DirectorBeneficial48 t1_j6j6h86 wrote

I'm not saying you're wrong here, because they're probably just being asshole landlords (but I'm repeating myself). I'm simply questioning the timing aspect. If you suspect discrimination, document everything you've got and send it to a lawyer - perhaps there's a pattern.

That said, without a ton of evidence, it's a hard case to prove. Look at ol Don Trump back in the 60s and 70s - they basically had to prove by his own sheer malice and stupidity that he was guilty of it. They literally found applications with a big C written on them for "colored" to show a pattern of discrimination against black people.

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flapjack212 t1_j6iuikb wrote

i'm not clear what the concern you are looking to address actually is here but a few pieces of information:

  1. credit monitoring is not second-by-second live. just because you received an alert 3 minutes after does not mean the credit was run 10 seconds before you got the email
  2. credit pulls are not free, it'd be a uniquely stupid idea to run credit scores to just laugh at people. that said, i encounter many stupid people in life so it is still possible they did this
  3. if she did run the credit report after she rejected you it would be a violation of your privacy. if you want the impact of that on your credit score to be removed you can contact the credit bureaus (though i'll say the impact is very small). if you want the supervisor of the application reviewer to know you should contact the management company. however either way per #1 you may need to better understand and obtain evidence that this actually occurred the way you think
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DietMediocre8993 OP t1_j6iunlp wrote

>Let me give some more info: The management agent since Friday have been ardent in asking us to leave at the end of February, today she gave a final rejection quoting sub-lease as the reason, nothing about credit score. And then I get a credit check report from her. So I have to assume, that it at least takes a few minute to do a credit check?!

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possums101 t1_j6izzjl wrote

Like others have said it’s entirely possible they ran the credit before rejecting you and it’s just a coincidence that you were notified after you received the rejection. They checked your credit just like any landlord would but regardless of how good your score is you were trespassing so that’s the reason they gave for the rejection. Nothing illegal here. Sorry

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