Civ. Code, § 1785.20 · Chapter 3. Requirements on Users of Consumer Credit Reports
Civ. Code, § 1785.20
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) If any person takes any adverse action with respect to any consumer, and the adverse action is based, in whole or in part, on any information contained in a consumer credit report, that person shall do all of the following:
(1) Provide written notice of the adverse action to the consumer.
(2) Provide the consumer with the name, address, and telephone number of the consumer credit reporting agency which furnished the report to the person.
(3) Provide a statement that the credit grantor’s decision to take adverse action was based in whole or in part upon information contained in a consumer credit report.
(4) Provide the consumer with a written notice of the following rights of the consumer:
(A) The right of the consumer to obtain within 60 days a free copy of the consumer’s consumer credit report from the consumer credit reporting agency identified pursuant to paragraph (2) and from any other consumer credit reporting agency which compiles and maintains files on consumers on a nationwide basis.
(B) The right of the consumer under Section 1785.16 to dispute the accuracy or completeness of any information in a consumer credit report furnished by the consumer credit reporting agency.
(b) Whenever credit or insurance for personal, family, or household purposes involving a consumer is denied or the charge for such credit is increased either wholly or in part because of information obtained from a person other than a consumer credit reporting agency bearing upon consumer’s credit worthiness or credit standing, the user of that information shall, within a reasonable period of time, and upon the consumer’s written request for the reasons for that adverse action received within 60 days after learning of the adverse action, disclose the nature and substance of the information to the consumer. The user of the information shall clearly and accurately disclose to the consumer his or her right to make such a written request at the time the adverse action is communicated to the consumer.
(c) No person shall be held liable for any violation of this section if he or she shows by a preponderance of the evidence that at the time of the alleged violation he or she maintained reasonable procedures to assure compliance with this section.
(d) Nothing in this chapter shall excuse compliance with the requirements of Section 1787.2.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 1992, Ch. 1194, Sec. 9. Effective January 1, 1993. Operative July 1, 1993, by Sec. 13 of Ch. 1194.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV§ionNum=1785.20.
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- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
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