recent supreme court ruling RE: criminal background checks

Don't know of any SC ruling, but here's something from HUD:

In most instances, a record of conviction (as opposed to an arrest) will serve as sufficient evidence to prove that an individual engaged in criminal conduct. But housing providers that apply a policy or practice that excludes persons with prior convictions must still be able to prove that such policy or practice is necessary to achieve a substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interest. A housing provider that imposes a blanket prohibition on any person with any conviction record – no matter when the conviction occurred, what the underlying conduct entailed, or what the convicted person has done since then – will be unable to meet this burden. One federal court of appeals held that such a blanket ban violated Title VII, stating that it “could
not conceive of any business necessity that would automatically place every individual convicted of any offense, except a minor traffic offense, in the permanent ranks of the unemployed.”

Although the defendant-employer in that case had proffered a number of theft and safety-related justifications for the policy, the court rejected such justifications as “not empirically validated.”

Source: https://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=HUD_OGCGuidAppFHAStandCR.pdf

Bonnie,

There is a movement about "banning the box" to prevent employers from asking if you have a conviction.

In a 2011 ruling the supreme court upheld criminal background checks for government contractors.

However, in 2015, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission took legal action against a company claiming that the criminal checks had a disparate impact on some applicants.

As you can see, the law is changing, and changing quickly.

You should likely run your policy by your attorney.

If not done so already, you may need to adopt a policy on what within a background check would be considered disqualifying.

That is not what I am saying. We checked with our lawyer before we made t he resolution. What I am saying is the new owner told me that the recent Supreme Court ruling is a very recent ruling.

Opinions from the Supreme Court are always in writing and usually available online the very day they are issued. Printed versions in legal reference books may take awhile. Ask the new owner for a link to the case, the name of the case, or the legal citations. If he cannot do so, ignore him and listen to your own lawyer.

Ask the new owner for the name of the case or a copy of the web address you can find it.

The court may have taken a case and ruled or there may be a misunderstanding of the facts and there is no actual supreme court ruling.

See my earlier post.

The Inclusive Communities case that Tim cited is discussed in the doc I directed you to.

This case has nothing to do with criminal background checks.

Sorry, but this is a case from the US Supreme Court and the issue was whether the plaintiff, Inclusive Communities Project, Inc, could bring a claim against the Texas Dept of Housing and Community Affairs for creating a "disparate impact" by spending federal housing money in a way that effectively kept minorities out of predominately white neighborhoods. There was no mention anywhere within the opinion of criminal background checks.

There was some general material in the SCOTUS opinion regarding a short history of the Fair Housing Act and its purposes. It appears that the discussion of the history and purpose of the FHA was incorporated into the HUD document discussing criminal background checks.

What you want and what is, is not always the same. Yes, it would be great if we could do criminal background checks but it's NOT legal if you don't own the property. Besides, I worry more about those who have NOT been caught yet than those who have...

There are already PUBLIC websites one can go to for sexual offenders. There are laws in place that if there was a sex offender moving in Public notifications have to be given. Alteast you have access to that information.

Sorry but asking for a criminal background check can be recommended but not enforced by the HOA. It's just good business practice of a landlord to do it. Plus the HOA has no rights to a credit check either. No need for and HOA to have a social security number. So criminal background checks aren't the only area your HOA doesn't need access to.

Melissa,

Here is some more info on the topic:

What Does a Condo Association Look for in a Background Check? from a SanFranciso, CA website

Condos must set specific guidelines for background screenings, and follow them 2010 article from Palm Beach Post

To show how the laws may have changed:

Are Criminal Background Checks for New Purchasers and Renters in a Community Association Discriminatory? 2016 article

That article quoted HUD’s General Counsel which, in part, reads:

While the [Fair Housing] Act does not prohibit housing providers from appropriately considering criminal history information when making housing decisions, arbitrary and overbroad criminal history-related bans are likely to lack a legally sufficient justification.

NP,

I understand.

My point was to illustrate and dispute the blanket matter of fact statement made by Melissa specifying that it's not legal if you don't own the property. She qualified that statement later in her posting, saying this applied to HOA's. This is why I wanted to point out condominiums specifically and the fact that the OP lived in a condo.

Not everyone is familiar with these acronyms, Bonnie, so SCOTUS is the Supreme Court Of The U.S.

Thank you Tim. I think this is probably what our new owner was referring to. Although he called it a Supreme Court Ruling.

Then it up to that member to run the back ground check NOT the HOA. The tenant is still NOT a HOA member.