The landlord cannot ever collect a fee for a credit report in Massachusetts.
A real estate firm can ONLY collect a fee for a credit report IF that agent has a signed Rental Fee Disclosure from the person who is paying for the application fee (credit report) which states that the fee is non-refundable. (This form can be found in Dotloop under “Templates”, in the Rental Forms section. This form is editable so you can put the amount you are collecting for credit).
The alternative to doing this is that the landlord CAN require that all applicants provide a copy of their credit report and the landlord can require that it come from a certain credit vendor and be dated within a particular time period