rental-property landlord confidentiality
Can a landlord refuse to rent to confidential address recipient
<p>Someone I know has a court ordered confidential address (due to domestic violence) that allows them to use PO Boxes for all correspondences and their name and physical address cannot be made public.</p>

<p>Their apartment is refusing to renew the lease unless they registers with a third-party pet screening website that states that it collects personal information and shares it outside the country. They let the landlord know that they cannot register with the site since that violates the court order; however, the landlord is saying that they will not renew the lease unless they register (even though they have no animals).</p>

<p>What is their defense against this? </p>

<p>Although the apartments are mean, have had their car towed several times for not displaying the parking placard, had to do plumbing on the apartment 3 times for flooding coming from upstairs (while not putting them up anywhere while they did the week-long construction) and even tried to have them sign a 13-month lease calling it a 12-month lease... this is their only option at the moment.</p>

<p>The standard solution to such problems is to have the person's lawyer handle the matter (e.g. write a letter). I assume that the person had their name changed, and they are having mail forwarded from substitute address via an Address Confidentiality Program, where only the Sec'y of State knows the real address. However, in this situation, the landlord would also know the person's real address; and presumably the pet-check service knows the real address, as reported by the landlord (connected with the building's account). The problem is that, taking Washington's program as a representative, only Washington state and local governments are <em>required</em> to accept an ACP substitute address. The lawyer might, however, persuade the landlord to forego the pet-check registration. However, the landlord does not sound cooperative, and there is no general legal principle that would force him to relent.</p>

<p>There might be a jurisdiction-specific solution.
<a href="https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5c3c5585342cca5eda9cdb79" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Reynolds v. Fraser</a> 781 N.Y.S.2d 885
where a woman was in a similar confidential-address arrangement and the parties who knew her real location refused to reveal the location without the interested party (an employer: NYC government) signing a confidentiality agreement, which they refused to do. The woman was fired for somewhat unclear reasons having to do with taking sick leave without the employer being able to check up on her. The court held that the employer's conduct was illegal discrimination against a victim of domestic violence, relying on an existing anti-discrimination law in NYC. This approach might work, depending on what laws exist in that city and state.</p>

<p>There can't be a universal court order prohibiting anyone from using the person's real name or actual address – people would have to know via a published court order "It is hereby ordered that nobody ever reveal that Jane Doe lives at 123 Mockingbird Lane", which would defeat the purpose of such an order. </p>
