Before you apply for the job, the apartment, the nursing license or the Fort Bliss access badge, you should know exactly what the background check will show. Many El Paso residents guess, and they guess wrong in both directions: some assume a dismissed case vanished when it did not, while others hide from opportunities because of a record that was already eligible for expunction years ago. Worse, commercial background check companies routinely report cases that belong to someone else with a similar name, list a single arrest three times, or show a dismissed charge as pending. A background check review answers the question with documents instead of guesses.
Two bodies of law protect you. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 and following, requires background check companies to use reasonable procedures to assure accuracy, to reinvestigate disputed items within 30 days, and to give you a copy of any report used against you along with a pre-adverse action notice before an employer withdraws an offer. Texas Business and Commerce Code Chapter 20 adds state rules for consumer reporting agencies, including a seven-year limit on reporting most arrests and convictions for jobs paying under $75,000, and Chapter 109 lets you demand that mugshot and criminal-record websites remove information about an expunged or sealed case.
Navar Law performs the review for a flat fee and nothing about it involves a courtroom. Attorney Robert Navar obtains your official DPS criminal history, checks the El Paso County District and County Clerk records and the municipal court, and, where useful, orders the same commercial report an employer would see. You receive a written summary in plain English or Spanish of every entry, whether it is accurate, whether it can be expunged or sealed and under which statute, and what to say on applications in the meantime. If a company is reporting something wrong, we prepare the FCRA dispute and, if needed, the demand letter. The fee is credited toward any expunction or nondisclosure we then file.
Common background check errors we see in El Paso
The same handful of mistakes come up again and again: a dismissed El Paso case still listed as an open charge because the database never picked up the disposition; an arrest reported once by the police, once by the county and once by DPS so it looks like three separate incidents; a record belonging to a different person who shares your name and birth year, which is especially common with Hispanic surnames in the El Paso and Juárez area; an expunged case that a data broker bought before the order and never deleted; and convictions older than seven years reported in violation of Texas Business and Commerce Code section 20.05. Each of these is disputable, and the company must reinvestigate within 30 days or delete the entry.
If an employer or landlord already used the report against you
Under FCRA section 1681b(b)(3), an employer must give you a copy of the report and a summary of your rights before taking adverse action, and a reasonable time to respond. Landlords have similar notice obligations under section 1681m. If an El Paso employer pulled an offer without those steps, or a company kept reporting an item after you disputed it, you may be entitled to actual damages, statutory damages up to $1,000 per willful violation and attorney's fees. We evaluate that claim as part of the review and send a demand letter when the facts support one.
None of this requires you to appear anywhere. Disputes and demands go out in writing, and the response deadlines are set by federal law, not by the company's convenience.
What's included
- Official Texas DPS criminal history request and review
- Search of El Paso County District Clerk, County Clerk and municipal court records
- Comparison against a commercial background report when one is available or ordered
- Written entry-by-entry summary with expunction and nondisclosure eligibility under Texas law
- FCRA dispute letters to each reporting company for inaccurate or outdated entries
- Guidance on how to answer criminal history questions on applications while cleanup is pending
- Fee credit toward any expunction, nondisclosure or juvenile sealing we file for you
How it works
Gather the official record
You give us your identifying details and any report you have received. We request your DPS history and search the El Paso County and municipal court records so we are working from the source, not a data broker.
Written review and cleanup plan
Within one to three weeks you receive a plain-language summary of every entry, which ones are wrong, which qualify for expunction or sealing and when, and a flat-fee quote for each next step.
Disputes and filings
We send FCRA disputes for the errors and track the 30-day deadline, and if you choose to proceed, we file the expunction or nondisclosure petition with the review fee credited toward it.