How to Screen Tenants: The Ultimate Landlord’s Guide

Landlords who never learn how to properly screen tenants face many of the same common headaches over and over: late rent payments, broken lease agreements, damaged property, expensive legal battles, and even squatters.

To avoid renting to a nightmare tenant, you must learn how to thoroughly vet applicants consistently. Doing so increases your odds of finding tenants who pay rent on time, abide by their lease agreements, respect your property, and renew their rental contracts.

We’ve created this comprehensive guide to help you understand the fair housing laws that govern tenant screening, weed out undesirable applicants through pre-screening, screen tenants in eight simple steps, legally deny undesirable applicants, and more.

Why Tenant Screening Matters

Let’s pretend you own a business and need a new employee. Do you want to hire an unreliable candidate who will show up to work late, break their employment contracts, and butt heads with you every chance they get? No, of course not.

Instead, you want to hire a trustworthy employee who will show up on time, respect your rules, communicate clearly, and help you grow your business.

But how will you find that dream employee?

Start by giving qualified applicants detailed job-specific applications, conducting thorough interviews, running background checks, calling old employers, and exercising as much due diligence as possible. Anything less would be selling your business short.

So, as a landlord, why would you run your rental property management operation any differently?

In essence, your portfolio is your business, and your tenants are your employees. If you select subpar tenants, your rental business will suffer. If you choose upstanding tenants, your business has a far better chance of succeeding.

Understanding Fair Housing Laws and Legal Screening Practices

Before marketing your properties, searching for tenants, and accepting rental applications, you must understand federal fair housing laws. Why? Because landlords who don’t follow them are often subject to damaging legal action, hefty fines, and more.

The Federal Fair Housing Act prohibits landlords in all 50 states from housing discrimination based on the following:

• Race
• Color
• Religion
• Sex
• National origin
• Disability
• Familial status

To avoid discriminatory practices, we recommend that all landlords (and their staff) brush up on fair housing laws, implement fair and consistent policies, use neutral advertising, send out non-discriminatory rental applications, and report violations to the U.S. Department of Housing. Note that some states have added protections for other classes.

Staff must understand these rules because their employer (you) can be liable when your employees break the law.

Pre-Screening Tenants: Filtering Out Unqualified Applicants

While discriminating against tenants for the characteristics above is forbidden, landlords can filter out tenants based on objective, non-discriminatory criteria like:

• Income (however, states like California and Colorado prohibit discrimination based on the source of income, including housing vouchers and child support)
• Credit score
• Employment status
• Rental history
• Criminal background (many states don’t allow landlords to check criminal backgrounds until a conditional lease offer is sent. Also, many only allow landlords to look back into the last 3 years of criminal history.)
• Pets
• Smoking status

Keep in mind that if you’re a Section 8 landlord, you’ll have more restrictions to consider when choosing tenants. That said, here are a couple of tips landlords can utilize to discourage non-qualified applicants from applying to rent their properties:

Create a Clear Rental Listing With Screening Criteria

When creating your rental listing, clearly state a prospective tenant’s minimum application requirements, like income level, credit score, employment status, rental history, etc. Doing so will deter anyone who is underqualified from applying to live at your property.

But before publishing your rental listing, brush up on your state’s landlord-tenant laws to ensure that it meets state guidelines and won’t be perceived as discriminatory by local or federal housing agencies.

Ask Pre-Screening Questions Before Showing the Property

To save time and ensure a good fit, ask anyone interested in your property a few key questions to confirm they meet the rental criteria in your listing. Specifically, inquire about their income, employment, desired move-in date, and other essential information.

Conducting a quick pre-screening questionnaire could save you and the interested party valuable time before meeting in person. After all, the goal is to find suitable renters who meet your complete screening standards.

Landlord’s Step-by-Step Guide to Screening Tenants Effectively

Now that you understand the importance of pre-screening potential renters let’s dive into the eight-step process for effectively screening applicants for your rental properties.

Step 1: Require a Rental Application From Every Prospective Tenant

If an interested party has met your pre-screening criteria and wants to live in your rental property, you can now send them a rental application.

This application should reveal non-discriminatory information about a renter, like their name, date of birth, contact information, rental history, employer name, job title, approximate income, credit check and background check authorization, past landlord references, and more.

To ensure that you send out a non-discriminatory rental application, you have a few options:

• Create the rental application yourself and pay a legal professional to review it.
• Pay a legal professional to create the rental application on your behalf.
• Use property management software to generate a legally sound rental application in minutes — for free.

Though exercising any of the three options above will likely result in a non-discriminatory rental application, we recommend using property management software. It is completely free and takes only a few minutes.

Generate your free rental application now.

Step 2: Run a Tenant Credit Check and Assess Financial Responsibility

The next step to screening your applicant involves running a credit check to reveal pertinent information about them, including their on-time payment history, outstanding debts, overall creditworthiness, and credit score.

Upon receiving a credit score, an applicant should fall into one of the following five credit tiers:

• Excellent (800–850): Demonstrates strong financial management, consistent payment history, and low debt. These tenants represent the lowest risk.
• Very Good (740–799): Shows responsible credit use with few late payments and a solid financial profile.
• Good (670–739): Indicates above-average credit with some minor past issues but generally demonstrates responsible financial behavior.
• Fair (580–669): Suggests credit challenges, like occasional late payments or higher debt levels. However, they may still be reliable with strong income and rental history.
• Poor (300–579): Reflects significant credit problems, potentially including frequent missed payments, high debt, or prior evictions. These tenants present the highest risk.

Landlords often set minimum credit score guidelines when selecting tenants, with 600-650 commonly representing the “low end” for applicants.

To initiate a credit check, use our free Tenant Screening report service. Enter the applicant’s email address to start the process. Tenants pay a reasonable fee to initiate the screening report, and landlords pay nothing.

Step 3: Perform a Criminal Background Check

When pulling a free credit report on an applicant, landlords can initiate a simultaneous criminal background check, which will help identify potential tenant risks and ensure a safe living environment for neighbors and residents.

A criminal background check often reveals the following information about a tenant:

• Felony and misdemeanor convictions
• Pending charges
• Arrest records
• Sex offender registry status
• Eviction-related court cases

Important legal note: Many landlords have criteria that will disqualify applicants with specific criminal backgrounds. However, certain states and cities restrict landlords’ use of criminal records during tenant screening. For instance, if an applicant has a criminal history in a state that regulates whether or not landlords can factor this information into their decision, the landlord may be legally required to consider the details surrounding the offense, when it occurred, and proof of rehabilitation before deciding whether or not to rent to the tenant. Always read up on your local landlord-tenant laws before disqualifying an applicant based on their criminal history. Federal law does restrict considering arrest records, only conviction records.

Step 4: Conduct an Eviction Check

Assessing an applicant’s eviction history objectively reveals their past behavior as a renter. Applicants whose past landlords have evicted should raise an immediate red flag. As such, many landlords rightfully refuse to rent to applicants with past evictions.

If a landlord has evicted a tenant, the free Tenant Screening report will detail their eviction history and essential information, including the court file number, address, filing date, action date, plaintiff ID, and more.

Step 5: Verify Employment and Income Stability

While a tenant may claim to work a particular job and earn a certain income, it’s your responsibility as a landlord to verify what they say is true. You’ll need to gain insights into the applicant’s income and connect with their employers to verify their claims.

Here are a few common questions to ask employers when verifying employment and income:

• Can you confirm the applicant’s job title and employment status?
• How long has the applicant been employed with your company?
• Can you verify their current salary or hourly wage?
• Is their position stable, and do you anticipate continued employment?
• Has the applicant demonstrated reliability and consistency in their role?

As always, refrain from asking any questions that could be perceived as discriminatory by federal and/or local housing agencies.

Step 6: Contact Personal and Landlord References

In addition to verifying a tenant’s income and employment, landlords should contact their past rental references, typically provided in the rental application, to better understand how an applicant would perform as a tenant.

When speaking with references, landlords should ask important questions that reveal information about a tenant’s rental history, such as:

• How long did the tenant rent from you?
• What condition was the unit in post move-out?
• Did the tenant have any animals?
• Were there any issues between the tenant and their neighbors?
• Would you rent to the tenant again?

To avoid perceived housing discrimination, do not ask any questions that reveal information regarding a tenant’s race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability status.

Types of discriminatory questions to avoid include:

• Does the tenant have children?
• Do you know the tenant’s religion?
• What country is the tenant from?
• What gender is the tenant?
• Does the tenant have any disabilities?

Step 7: Interview Prospective Tenants

If multiple applicants have passed their credit, background, eviction, employment, income, and rental reference checks, you have an important decision to make. If you’re having trouble deciding who to rent to after steps one through six, consider scheduling interviews with applicants to bring clarity.

Common tenant interview questions include:

• Why are you moving out of your old property?
• Can you explain the large employment gap on your rental application?
• Have you ever broken a lease in the past? If so, please explain why.

Whether in person or over the phone, use your interview to inquire about a tenant’s rental history, gauge their communication skills, and address any unanswered questions you have. After interviewing all your qualified applicants, you’ll have all the information you need to select your next tenant.

As always, avoid asking discriminatory questions during interviews that violate fair housing laws.

Step 8: Compare Applicants and Select the Best Tenant

After interviewing your qualified applicants, it’s time to select a tenant to live in your rental property. To do so, compare your potential renters across multiple essential considerations, including:

• Credit score
• Employment status and income
• Rental history and references
• Eviction record
• Criminal background
• Communication skills
• Pets
• Quality of interview

As you work through selecting a tenant, one candidate will (hopefully) rise to the top. If you still can’t decide after the interview, consider using an objective, non-discriminatory factor (like credit score) as a tiebreaker.

One last reminder: When choosing between tenants, do not let a tenant’s race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability status influence your decision.

How to Accept a Tenant and Prepare the Lease Agreement

Once you’ve properly screened all applicants and chosen a tenant to live in your rental property, it’s time to deliver them the good news. Notify your top candidate, in writing, that you wish to rent to them. Confirm the move-in date, lease terms, and any upfront payments required. Hopefully, upon receiving this news, the tenant agrees to rent from you.

If they do, you’ll need to prepare a legally sound lease agreement for the tenant to sign. Though there are many different ways to create a state-specific lease agreement, we recommend using our property management software to do so in 15 minutes or less.

Once you and the tenant have signed the lease agreement, you can focus on coordinating a move-in, managing your other rental properties, and building your portfolio.

How to Deny a Rental Applicant Legally and Professionally

When rejecting a rental applicant, notify them promptly and professionally in writing. Take extra care to ensure that your explanation is neutral and complies with local and federal fair housing laws, and avoid any language that could be seen as discriminatory.

If you base your denial on credit, background, or rental history reports, provide an adverse action notice with information on accessing the report. While rejecting an applicant can be awkward for landlords, maintaining clear and professional communication will ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible.

Final Thoughts: Why a Strong Tenant Screening Process Matters

Knowing how to screen tenants properly is a skill landlords must possess to find vetted renters, put their rental properties on autopilot, and efficiently expand their portfolios.

We can help you gain this skill by marketing your rentals, creating non-discriminatory rental applications, screening tenants thoroughly, and generating state-specific lease rental contracts.

Sign up for a free TurboTenant account today to start filling your properties with upstanding tenants right away.

How to Screen Tenants FAQs