Two Maryland laws took effect on October 1, 2026. Both change how landlords screen people who apply to rent. The Fair Chance Housing Act (SB 937, Chapter 752) limits when and how a landlord can look at a criminal record. SB 335 (Chapter 773) protects renters who pay with a housing voucher and adds a way to report rent to a credit bureau.
The Fair Chance law covers landlords who own or manage five or more units in Maryland. That includes us. Here’s what changed and what applying with us looks like now.
How applying with EPG works now
Every applicant goes through the same steps, in the same order.
- Fill out our free pre-qualification form.
- Complete the full rental application. We send you the link after you pre-qualify. Every adult who will live in the home, 18 or older, applies.
- Pay TransUnion SmartMove directly for your screening report. We don’t charge an application fee.
- We review your credit, eviction history, income and references.
- If those check out, we send you a written conditional offer.
- Only then do we run a criminal background check, limited to what the law allows.
If anything in that check changes our decision, you get a letter. It explains why and tells you how to ask for a second look.
What the Fair Chance Housing Act changes
Before a landlord makes a conditional offer, they can’t ask about your criminal history. Not on the application, and not in conversation. There’s a short list of exceptions a landlord may still ask about before the offer: certain sexual offenses, child pornography, first- or second-degree murder, human trafficking, sex offender registry status, and making meth in federally assisted housing. Out-of-state versions of those offenses count too.
After a written conditional offer, a landlord can run a criminal check. Even then, the only convictions that can be weighed are felonies from the five years before you applied, plus any of the listed offenses you didn’t disclose. Arrests and misdemeanors are out. So are felonies older than five years.
In practice, if you had a shoplifting misdemeanor in 2019, it doesn’t come up with us. If you were arrested and never convicted, that doesn’t come up either. A felony conviction from 2018 is outside the five-year window, so we don’t weigh it.
A landlord that charges an application fee has to give you a written notice first. We don’t charge one, but we give every applicant that notice anyway, before you pay TransUnion SmartMove. It says how criminal history is used, that you can send evidence of errors, rehabilitation or other mitigating factors, and that each applicant gets an individualized assessment.
The law also bans drug and alcohol testing of applicants. Landlords can’t run ads saying they won’t consider people with records. The penalty is up to $500 per violation.
If an offer is withdrawn
A landlord can pull a conditional offer only for a substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interest. You get written notice with the specific reason. You also have the right to ask for a reassessment and send written evidence.
A reassessment weighs:
- what the offense was and how serious it was
- how old you were at the time
- how much time has passed
- rehabilitation since then
- any risk to safety
- whether it happened at a rental
You can ask for everything the landlord relied on within 30 days of the withdrawal. The landlord then has 10 days to give it to you.
With us, that starts with the letter. Send us your evidence in writing and we’ll look at it again.
Renting with a housing voucher
Voucher holders are welcome at EPG, and we screen them under the new rule.
Under SB 335, a landlord can’t turn you down because of your income, your credit score, not having a credit score, or bad credit from before you had your subsidy. Income can still be checked, but only against your own share of the rent, using the same ratio as every other applicant. So if your voucher covers most of the rent, your income is measured against the part you pay, not the full amount.
The law still lets landlords look at references from past landlords. They can also consider a history of lease violations, unpaid utilities, nuisance or property damage.
Reporting rent to a credit bureau
The same law says landlords with six or more Maryland units must offer tenants the option to have on-time rent payments reported to a credit bureau. The offer goes in the lease and comes again once a year. It’s your choice. If there’s a fee, it can’t be more than the actual cost or $10 a month, whichever is less. Tenants with leases already in place must get the offer by January 1, 2027.
We’ll tell residents how to opt in once the details are set.
For property owners
We now apply one written screening standard to every Maryland property we manage. That means owners can no longer ask us for blanket criminal-history rules, like “no felonies” or “no records.” The law doesn’t allow it.
Voucher applicants are screened under the new rule too. Their income is measured against their share of the rent, using the same ratio as everyone else.
If you own six or more units in Maryland, the rent reporting duty applies to you. We’ll handle it in the lease package.
If you have questions about a specific property, call or text us at (240) 902-5767.
Where to read the laws
This post is general information, not legal advice. You can read both bills on the Maryland General Assembly site: SB 937, the Fair Chance Housing Act and SB 335.
Start with pre-qualification
If you’re looking for a rental with us in Cumberland, elsewhere in Allegany County or around Baltimore, start with our free pre-qualification form. Every applicant begins there. After you pre-qualify, we send you the link to the full rental application.