Is my landlord allowed to write a rental reference letter & give it to me to deliver to a potential landlord?

My husband and I are in the process of applying to rent a house. We live in an apartment complex right now, and have been here for 2 years with good history. I need a reference letter to include in my application packet to help demonstrate our reliability, but when I inquired at the office, they told me they are not allowed to do so. I was told that they can fax verification to the new company, but that's it. I'm just wondering if I'm being lied to. Can anyone help? I live in NC if that makes any difference.

Not allowed to has nothing to do with a law against it, not allowed to is likely company policy put in place to mitigate liability risks.

Besides, as a landlord I want to to talk to the landlord BEFORE your current landlord. If you were a bad tenant, your current landlord might be very happy to give a good reference in order to get you out of his property.

I'd suggest you ask why they are "not allowed to do so". As far as I know, no law forbids them to give references as long as you have given permission (for certain types of information).
But if you say "I need a reference letter", I dont see how they would be able to say "no we arent allowed to". What you may be able to do in the alternative is provide rent receipts showing the rent was all paid on time.

They are not allowed to give out personal info...which would be included in your application packet. If you new landlord wants this info...he should inquire about it himself.

that's very common...same w/ employers.....can only verify that you paid rent timely, confirm duration of lease, and maybe whether or not they would rent to you again.

Employers/references....are legally bound by only answering factual based questions.....Things like "were they noisy tenants" will not be answered.....