There's a Bad Tenant Blacklist Out There

This is a bad tenant.

Landlords are dropping serious cash for a list of blacklisted tenants, and you just might be on it. The New York State Office of Court Administration compiles a list of any and every tenant that has been sued in housing court for eviction. That list is sold to companies, who then upload them into gigantic databases and charge $20K to landlords who wish to download it (it costs an additional $350 for each new weekly update). 

OK, if you've built a meth lab in the basement (I'm lookin' at you, Jesse Pinkman), then you surely deserve to be be on this list. But folks who have won their case in housing court or were sued by mistake can still end up on the list, and that's not cool. 

52 year-old limo driver James Whelan has spent the past 15 years living in his rent-stabilized apartment, which his landlord is trying to evict him from. If James fights the eviction in court, his name will end up on the list, and finding a new place to live will likely prove to be very difficult. James is still fighting to stay in his apartment, and has filed a lawsuit against the NYC Office of Court Administration to try and prevent them from releasing his information to the private companies that compile the list. 

The only thing blacklisted tenants may have working for them in this situation is the cost of the download. $20K? That's steep for a list of names, so maybe some landlords will shrug it off and use their "good old fashioned knack for first impressions." And we still have our bad landlord lists, too! We can fight right back (though let's get real. For some affordable exposed brick and a washer/dryer in the basement, we'd rent a room from crazy Annie Wilkes).

[Via Gothamist]