How to screen tenants legally and actually effectively

Write your criteria before you advertise

Decide in advance what qualifies an applicant, put it in writing, and apply it to every single person who applies. A typical written policy covers income relative to rent, credit history, rental history, employment verification, criminal history within the limits your jurisdiction allows, and occupancy limits.

Written criteria do two things at once. They make comparing applicants fast and unemotional, and if anyone ever claims you treated them differently, they are your evidence that you did not.

Know what fair housing law forbids

Federal law protects race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), familial status, and disability. Many states and cities add more, commonly source of income, age, marital status, and military status.

The rule applies to how you advertise, what you ask, who you show the unit to, and what terms you offer. The dangerous mistakes are usually friendly ones: 'this place is really better for a single professional', 'there aren't many kids in the building', or steering an applicant with a wheelchair toward a different unit. Describe the property, never the person you imagine in it.

• Ask every applicant the same questions, in the same order.
• Never ask about disability, children, religion, or country of origin.
• You must consider a reasonable accommodation request, and assistance animals are not pets — no pet fee, no breed rule.

Verify income the boring way

A common standard is gross monthly income of about three times the rent, but the standard matters less than applying it consistently and verifying it. Ask for recent pay stubs or bank statements, and call the employer using a number you looked up yourself rather than the one written on the application.

For self-employed applicants, tax returns and several months of bank statements tell a truer story than any single document. For applicants with a guarantor, run the guarantor through the same checks.

Call the previous landlord — not the current one only

The current landlord may be eager to see a difficult tenant leave. The landlord before that has no reason to shade the truth. Ask both, and keep the questions factual: dates of tenancy, rent amount, whether rent arrived on time, whether notices were served, whether the deposit was returned, and whether they would rent to this person again.

Confirm you are speaking to an actual landlord by cross-checking the property's ownership records. A friend answering a mobile phone is one of the oldest tricks in rental applications.

Run credit and background checks the right way

Use a screening service that complies with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and get the applicant's written authorization first. Read the report for patterns rather than a single number: eviction filings, collections from previous landlords or utilities, and whether debt is being paid at all.

Criminal history rules have tightened in many places. Blanket bans on anyone with a record invite fair housing trouble; the safer approach is an individualized assessment of the nature of the offense, how long ago it happened, and its relevance to tenancy.

If you say no, send an adverse action notice

When you deny an applicant, raise the deposit, or require a co-signer because of something in a consumer report, federal law requires you to tell them: what action you took, which reporting agency supplied the report, that the agency did not make the decision, and that they have the right to a free copy and to dispute errors.

It is a short letter and it is not optional. Keep a copy of every application, every report, and every notice for at least the length of your state's limitations period.