Your Year-End Background Screening Compliance Checklist (Employment & Tenant)

As the year wraps up, most employers and housing providers are already planning for what’s ahead—new budgets, new hires, and hopefully fewer headaches. But there’s one area that often gets overlooked during year-end planning: background screening compliance.

The truth is, compliance isn’t something you only think about when there’s a problem. It’s something you build into your process so problems don’t happen in the first place. And with regulations tightening nationwide, now is the perfect time to make sure your screening practices are clean, consistent, and fully aligned with federal and state laws.

At Western Verify, we help employers and landlords navigate these rules every day. Below is a simple, conversational year-end checklist to help you confirm that your process is safe, compliant, and ready for the new year.

Are You Using Adverse Action Correctly?

Adverse action is one of the most misunderstood parts of background screening, yet it’s one of the biggest areas where companies get sued. Whether you're denying a job or rejecting a tenant, federal law requires you to follow a very specific process—before you make your final decision.

You must provide:

• A pre-adverse action notice
• A copy of the background report
• A written summary of rights under the FCRA
• A reasonable waiting period before the final decision
• A final adverse action notice

Missing even one of these steps can lead to costly FCRA violations. If your team isn’t 100% confident in how they handle adverse action, now is the time to tighten things up.

Are Your Disclosure and Authorization Forms Legally Compliant?

This one seems simple, but it’s a big legal landmine.

Your disclosure form must be:

• Clear and standalone
• Free of extra language
• Not combined with liability releases or unrelated statements

Courts have ruled against employers for including as little as one extra sentence in their disclosure. If your forms haven’t been reviewed in the last 12 months, there’s a good chance they need updating.

For tenant screening, the disclosure rules are similar—clean, simple, and easy to understand. The authorization form must properly capture consent for the type of screening you’re running.

A quick form audit now can prevent a massive legal problem later.

Do You Know Your State’s Reporting Limits?

Here’s where things get especially tricky.

Reporting rules differ between:

• Employment background checks
• Tenant background checks
• Individual states

For example:

• Some states limit reporting of criminal records to seven years.
• Others restrict reporting of certain types of civil judgments.
• A few states have banned reporting eviction filings unless they resulted in a judgment.
• Credit reports may be restricted in certain employment situations.

If you’re hiring or renting in multiple states, you can’t assume one set of rules works everywhere. This is where having a compliant screening partner makes your life significantly easier.

Western Verify provides employer-specific and tenant-specific reporting based on state law, so you never accidentally receive information you’re not legally allowed to use.

Are You Storing Consumer Reports Securely?

Background checks contain incredibly sensitive personal data—dates of birth, SSNs, addresses, employment history, and sometimes financial or criminal information.

Storing them improperly isn’t just a bad idea—it can be a direct compliance violation.

You should be asking:

• Who has access to background reports?
• Are they stored digitally? If so, are they encrypted?
• Are printed copies destroyed securely?
• Do you have a retention policy that aligns with FCRA rules?

Many organizations store reports far longer than they should or leave them accessible to employees who don’t need them. A quick security check can eliminate unnecessary exposure.

Have You Audited Your Screening Vendor?

Not all screening companies are created equal—and not all are compliant.

A year-end review of your background check provider should answer:

• Do they follow FCRA regulations?
• Is their data accurate and up-to-date?
• What is their turnaround time?
• Are they transparent about how searches are conducted?
• Do they provide support when you have compliance questions?

Your vendor should feel like a partner—not a mystery.

At Western Verify, we give clients clear, easy-to-read reports, fast turnaround times, and guidance when compliance questions come up. That’s the kind of reliability you want going into the new year.

Final Thoughts: A Simple Checklist, A Big Difference

A small compliance mistake can lead to big consequences—lawsuits, fines, delays, lost applicants, or rejected tenants. But the good news is that a little proactive review at the end of the year can clean up your entire process.

This checklist is designed to make that easy.

As you prepare for the year ahead, Western Verify is here to help ensure your hiring and tenant screening practices stay safe, compliant, and efficient. If you’d like a personalized compliance review or help improving your screening workflow, our team is ready to support you.

Start the new year confident that your process is not just fast—but also legally sound.