Applicant Screening

Oregon Senate Bill 1523 & House Bill 4123 (2026) Summaries

Answer: City of Portland (and presumably entire state) allows landlords to use SSN but a tenant's failure to provide a social security number cannot be the basis of rejection.

By:  Rebekah Near, CEO, Orca Information, Inc.

Reviewing the applicant’s rental application Since 1995 when Orca Information, Inc. first opened its doors for business Nationwide, we found the following: The Landlord who reviews a rental application, making sure it is filled out correctly, all phone numbers are provided, signatures, etc., will receive a quicker turn-around time on the background screening report. This applies to this day.

Inaccuracies

Question: What happens if a community denies housing based on a screening report that contains inaccurate information about an applicant's criminal history?

Remove any ban based on arrests. The first thing to do is to check whether your policy includes any ban based on arrest records, Richer said. HUD's guidance clearly states that records of arrest should not be used to deny housing or terminate a lease.

UPDATE: Thanks to John VanLandingham for reminding me that pursuant to the recently enacted Senate Bill 970, ORS 90.303 was amended to provide that when evaluating an applicant for tenancy, the landlord may not consider: (a) A criminal conviction for possession of marijuana; nor (b) Possession of a medical marijuana card, or status as a medical

It's also important to realize that there isn'tone source for information on all federal and state criminal records, said Richer, explaining what she considers to be the "biggest myth in resident screening." There is no single "national" database of criminal records available to screening company providers.