For decades, Contemporary Information Corp has provided clients with a range of reliable, accurate data solutions, with a particular focus on meeting the background screening needs of rental housing market operators throughout the United States. Led by chief executive officer William Bower and chief financial officer Sabrina Bower, Contemporary Information Corp (CIC) has developed a comprehensive database of predictive public records, including nearly 40 million housing court records.
The CIC team appreciates the many legal challenges and related complications that come with navigating housing industry regulations and related screening laws. To this end, they have created the Regulatory Matrix with the express purpose of protecting property managers and other industry leaders safe from legal harm. Services such as the Regulatory Matrix are especially critical considering the housing industry’s constantly changing laws, ranging from shifting tenant protection standards at the federal level to more specific changes at the state level (such as how many years criminal background screenings can go back). The CIC Regulatory Matrix makes it easier than ever to follow the nation’s latest criminal and eviction data restrictions.
Through the Regulatory Matrix platform, CIC actively monitors all proposed legislation with the potential to impact America’s rental housing industry, including any legal changes to resident screening processes. This concentrated focus on industry regulations can prove especially valuable to rental owners with properties in different cities, counties, and states, all of which may have unique laws and criteria for renter’s rights. This includes the information property owners and managers can use to approve or deny an applicant, where a single mistake can lead to serious legal trouble for landlords (even accessing prohibited information prior to making a rental decision can leave an owner open to legal action, even if the data does not factor into the final decision to rent).
For years, the CIC Regulatory Matrix has benefited users with regular updates at no extra charge. Among the platform’s most helpful features is the ability to filter information that falls under legal data restrictions in a specific property’s area code. Users can easily change a property’s address and see new data if they manage assets in different locations.
The Regulatory Matrix is an extension of CIC’s commitment to keeping clients abreast of relevant laws and industry changes, including those impacting the national sex offender registry. Sex offender registry records represent a completely distinct category for property owners. These records fall under three levels. The criteria for levels one, two, and three vary from state to state, with relevant data including age at the time of the offense, perceived risk of repeat offenses, and whether an individual is a danger to the public.
Tracking these records can prove difficult for several reasons. For instance, only level three offenses qualify as public records, though lower level offenses may exist on record at the county level. States, counties, and cities also observe different expungement laws, such as Missouri’s “Romeo and Juliet” law, which allows certain offenses to fall off the record after 24 months. In Seattle, meanwhile, the Fair Chance Housing Ordinance SMC 14.09 maintains that landlords cannot explicitly exclude any person with a record, including sex offenders. These records and regulations represent yet another area where uninformed property managers can get themselves into legal trouble if they do not work with an experienced tenant screening services provider like CIC.
