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Committee advances tenant‑screening reforms, removes reusable background‑check language in committee substitute
Summary
The committee reviewed and advanced a committee substitute for legislation changing tenant‑screening fee and background‑check rules.
Senate Judiciary Committee members reviewed changes to legislation about tenant screening fees, background checks and unfair practices in the owner‑resident relations act.
Senator Hamlin, the sponsor's floor member on the bill package, introduced the committee substitute and called forward subject‑matter experts including Rachel Bix, chief strategy officer at Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless, to summarize edits made after earlier subcommittee work. Ms. Bix described a set of targeted edits. “This is the substantive change that we made to the bill. We removed the portion that allowed for a reusable credit or background check,” she said, and added that the new language limits charging more than one screening fee for the same applicant for properties under the same ownership if the earlier screening occurred within 90 calendar days.
Other changes captured in the committee substitute included moving language formerly in the background‑check section, clarifying certified mail for returned notices, and relocating certain unfair practices language into the unfair practices act. Committee members suggested further drafting cleanups (for example, narrowing repetitive language on page 16) and the sponsor accepted several of those edits during the hearing.
The sponsor moved a do‑not‑pass on the original bill and a do‑pass on the Judiciary Committee substitute (the committee sub 0.5 version with adopted edits). Committee members recorded no objection; the chair announced the committee substitute passed with all present voting in the affirmative.
What happens next: the committee substitute will be prepared as the next version and scheduled for floor consideration. The transcript records granular drafting discussion about background check reuse, certified‑mail language and fee definitions; it also shows senators proposing language to broaden or simplify certain sections and the sponsor accepting several friendly edits.
