How to add registry screening to tenant applications
The check itself is one API call. Everything that determines whether it helps you — where it sits in the funnel, what you do with a partial name, and who decides — is workflow design.
Put the check where the data is good
Run it at application, not at enquiry. At application you have a legal name and a date of birth, which is the difference between a search that resolves to one person and a search that returns forty.
A date of birth is the single highest-value field in the request. Without it, a common surname produces a review queue rather than an answer.
Search prior addresses, not just the current one
Registry data is filed where a person registered, not where they are applying to live. An applicant moving across state lines will not appear in a search scoped to your state. Run nationwide by default, and scope only when you have a specific reason.
If the application collects prior addresses, a radius search around them is a reasonable second pass.
Nationwide, then a radius pass
POST /v1/search
{ "query": { "firstName": "Jane", "lastName": "Roe", "dob": "1991-02-03" } }
POST /v1/search
{ "query": { "latitude": 39.7392, "longitude": -104.9903, "radiusMiles": 10 } }Decide the threshold before you see a hit
Write down, in advance, which match basis triggers which action. Doing this after a hit lands is how inconsistent decisions get made, and inconsistency is the thing that becomes a fair-housing problem.
- Exact date-of-birth match → hold the application for human review
- Birth-year match → human review, never automatic
- Name-only match → not actionable on its own
- Every outcome logged with the match basis that produced it
Keep the artifact
Attach a verification report to the file at the moment of the decision. It is timestamped, carries a source citation on every record, and is clearly labelled as your own search output rather than a government document.
The compliance line
Offendersearch is not a consumer reporting agency and results are not a consumer report; do not use them for FCRA-covered decisions without appropriate process. Housing decisions carry their own fair-housing obligations that vary by jurisdiction.
Design so the system supplies evidence and a person makes the decision, consistently, against a threshold you set in advance.
The part people lose a week to
A screening step applied inconsistently is a bigger liability than not screening at all. Write the threshold down, apply it to every applicant, and log the basis.
Questions this raises
Where in the leasing funnel should the check run?
At application, when you have a legal name and date of birth. Running it at enquiry produces ambiguous results because you do not yet have the fields that make a search resolve.
Should I search only my state?
No. Registry data is filed where a person registered, not where they are applying to live, so an applicant moving between states will not appear in a state-scoped search. Search nationwide by default.
Can I decline an applicant automatically on a match?
Keep a human on the decision. Offendersearch is not a consumer reporting agency, results are not a consumer report, and housing decisions carry fair-housing obligations that vary by jurisdiction.