McMillan Law's office is in Tampa. I represent people in Orlando and everywhere else in Florida, and the free case review happens by phone or online, so you don't have to drive anywhere to get started.
Last reviewed October 8, 2026 by Jackson McMillan, Florida attorney
Turned down for an Orlando apartment by a screening report
Here's how it can happen. You're a UCF student or a recent graduate with a short rental history. You apply at a large complex, and the leasing office says your screening report came back with an eviction. You've never been evicted. Or the report lists a theft charge from a county you've never lived in.
Screening reports are built from court records, and most court records don't include a Social Security number. So screening companies often match records to applicants by name, sometimes with a date of birth. When the match is loose, a stranger's eviction or criminal case ends up on your report.
Other errors to look for:
- An eviction filing shown without its outcome, when the case was dismissed, withdrawn, settled, or decided in your favor.
- Sealed or expunged records showing up anyway.
- One case listed two or three times.
- A misdemeanor reported as a felony.
- Records too old to report.
Tenant screening companies follow the same law as credit bureaus
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) reaches well beyond credit scores. A company that sells rental history, eviction records, or criminal background reports to landlords is a consumer reporting agency, just like Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
So its procedures must be reasonable and aimed at the maximum possible accuracy of each report (15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b)). When you dispute, it must reinvestigate for free, generally within 30 days, and delete or correct anything inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable. A nationwide screening company must also give you a free copy of your file once a year through a toll-free number.
An error by itself isn't automatically a violation. The question is whether the company used reasonable procedures and did a reasonable reinvestigation, and a report that pinned a stranger's eviction on you is where that question starts.
A practical tip: request your file by phone or mail when you can. Some screening company websites make you accept terms, including arbitration clauses, before you can see your file.
Renting in Orlando and across Orange County
The University of Central Florida is one of the largest universities in the country by enrollment, Central Florida has a large tourism and hospitality workforce, and Orange County has many large apartment communities. Put those together and a lot of people's next home depends on a screening report they may never see until they're denied.
I represent renters in Orlando and nearby Lake Nona, College Park, Winter Park, and Kissimmee when a screening report pins someone else's record on them or leaves out how a case ended. Students and new workers with thin rental histories are especially exposed, because one wrong eviction may be the only thing a landlord sees.
Moving out of an old place too? My guide to getting a security deposit back in Orlando covers what Florida landlords owe you, and if money vanished from your bank or a payment app, see bank and app fraud refunds in Orlando.
Another application can mean another fee and the same wrong report, so send me the denial notice and the screening report first, and I'll tell you where you stand.
The denial notice is your road map, not your lawsuit
When a landlord turns you down based even partly on a screening report, it has to send an adverse action notice. That notice must name the screening company, say the company didn't make the decision, and tell you that you can get a free copy of the report within 60 days and dispute anything wrong.
Be careful with what you hear about that notice. Most courts, including a federal court in Florida, hold that you can't sue just because the notice was missing or incomplete. Its value is that it tells you which company to dispute with. The stronger claims usually run against the screening company, for an inaccurate report or a careless reinvestigation.
My page on tenant and job background check errors covers how far back a report can go and the extra steps employers must take.
What a tenant screening error case can be worth
If a screening company negligently reports someone else's eviction or botches your dispute, the FCRA lets you recover actual damages, such as the apartment you lost, application fees, higher rent at the place that would take you, moving or temporary housing costs, and the stress and humiliation of being treated like a bad tenant.
Willfulness raises the stakes. If the company knowingly or recklessly broke the law, a court can award statutory damages from $100 to $1,000 in lieu of actual damages, and punitive damages too.
A report sent to a landlord is the kind of concrete harm courts look for. Federal courts require one, and so do Florida state courts, including the Ninth Judicial Circuit for Orange and Osceola counties.
When a consumer wins, the FCRA lets the court award reasonable attorney's fees and costs against the company. You don't pay me unless you win. I take these cases on contingency: no attorney's fees and no case costs owed to me unless you recover money. If a case is lost, a court can sometimes order the losing side to pay the other side's court costs, and some Florida laws, including the security deposit and deceptive practices statutes, also let the winner recover attorney's fees from the loser. I explain that risk before anything is filed, and every term is in a written agreement before you sign. For an overview of how these claims work, see my credit report error and FCRA page.
How fast you need to move
- Within 60 days of the denial, ask the screening company named in the notice for your free report.
- 30 days is the screening company's general deadline to finish your dispute, plus as many as 15 extra days if you hand it new information within that window.
- 5 business days after it finishes, written results are due.
- Generally seven years is how long most eviction cases and arrests that didn't lead to a conviction can be reported. Convictions have no federal time limit.
- 2 years from discovering the violation, and no more than 5 years after it, is your deadline to sue.
Before your next Orlando rental application
- Keep the denial notice and note the date it arrived.
- Request the screening report from the company it names within 60 days, by phone or mail if possible.
- Mark each wrong record with its case number, court, and date.
- Collect proof: your ID with your full name and date of birth, your past addresses, and court papers showing a dismissal or a different person.
- Dispute in writing with the screening company and keep copies. My dispute guide and sample letter works for screening companies too.
- Ask the leasing office whether it will reconsider once the report is corrected.
- Send it to me. Upload the notice, the report, and your proof for a free case review before you pay another application fee anywhere in Central Florida.