Short version: our reports are about buildings and land, not about people, and using one to judge a person is both against these terms and against federal law.
Effective July 24, 2026 · BeforeYouBuy Homes, Inc.
BeforeYouBuy Homes, Inc. is not a consumer reporting agency as defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. ("FCRA"). The reports we produce are not consumer reports, investigative consumer reports, or tenant screening reports, and they have not been assembled or verified to the standards the FCRA requires of one.
What we publish is property information: a parcel's flood zone, permit history, assessed value, environmental and neighborhood context, school assignment and similar facts drawn from public records about the address.
By using this service you agree not to use any report, or any data taken from one, in whole or in part, as a factor in establishing an individual's eligibility for:
You also agree not to use our reports to identify, locate, profile, harass or stalk any person, or to build a database about individuals.
We hold no credit files. A report does not include credit scores or credit history, criminal history for any named person, eviction filings, bankruptcy or judgment records tied to an individual, employment or income verification, or Social Security numbers or dates of birth.
Crime figures in a report are area statistics published by the FBI and local agencies for a jurisdiction. They describe a place. They say nothing about any person who lives there, and treating them as though they do is exactly the misuse this notice is about.
Where a public record names an owner — a deed, a permit application, a tax roll entry — we may display it because the government publishes it as part of the property record. That does not make the report a consumer report, and it does not license you to use the name for any of the purposes listed above.
Screening a tenant, an employee or a borrower is legitimate work, but it must be done through a consumer reporting agency that complies with the FCRA — one that verifies its data, obtains the subject's authorization, delivers the adverse action notices the law requires, and gives the subject a way to dispute what it holds. We do none of those things, which is precisely why our reports cannot be used that way.
Because we are not a consumer reporting agency, the FCRA dispute process does not apply to us. We still want the data right. If something we display about a property is wrong, email hello@beforeyoubuy.homes with the address and the specific field, or flag it from inside the report. We will check it against the source record and correct or remove it.
We cannot amend the underlying government record. If the county assessor or the city permit office has it wrong, the correction has to be made there — tell us and we will point you at the right agency. Each field in a report is labelled with where it came from for exactly this reason, and our methodology page explains how the sources fit together.
Misusing this information can expose you to liability under the FCRA and under state law. We will terminate the account of anyone we find using the service for a prohibited purpose, and we will cooperate with lawful requests from regulators. This notice forms part of our Terms of Service.