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Tenant screening guide

Updated 2026-09-04 · 11 min read

Engraving of a magnifying glass over application forms beside a brass bell
Screening is a process you can show someone, or it is a preference you cannot defend.

Written criteria

Set them before the first application arrives, apply them to everyone, and a fair-housing question becomes a document you hand over.

Screening has one job: predict whether the rent will be paid and the unit cared for, using criteria you wrote down before you met anybody. Everything else — the report, the calls, the decision — is execution.

Write the criteria first

  1. 01Income threshold, stated as a multiple of rent.
  2. 02Credit floor, or the compensating factors you will accept instead.
  3. 03Rental history: how many years, how many references, what disqualifies.
  4. 04Eviction and judgment history, within a stated lookback.
  5. 05Occupancy limits, consistent with local code.

Criteria applied unevenly are worse than none

The defence to a discrimination claim is that everyone was measured against the same written standard. An exception made once for a nice applicant is the exception the next complaint will cite.

The report, and what it does not tell you

A screening report typically returns a credit file or resident score, eviction records, and a criminal search. It does not verify income, does not confirm the applicant is who they say, and does not tell you how they treated the last unit. Those come from documents and telephone calls.

  • Verify income against two recent pay records or bank statements, not a screenshot.
  • Call the *previous* landlord as well as the current one — the current one may want them gone.
  • Confirm identity from a document, in person or on video.
  • Ask every applicant the same questions, in the same order — see tenant screening questions.

What the two common report styles cost and cover is compared in SmartMove vs RentPrep.

Criminal history needs an individualised assessment

A blanket ban on anyone with a record is treated as a fair-housing risk because of its disparate impact. The defensible approach is individualised: what the conviction was, how long ago, what has happened since, and whether it bears on the tenancy. Several states and cities go further and restrict what you may consider at all, or when in the process you may ask.

Saying no, correctly

If you decline an applicant, require a co-signer, or ask for a larger deposit because of information in a consumer report, the FCRA requires an adverse action notice. The statute is explicit: the person taking the action shall "provide oral, written, or electronic notice of the adverse action to the consumer" (15 U.S.C. § 1681m, checked 2026-09-04), along with the credit score used and the information required by the section.

  1. 01Name the consumer reporting agency, with its address and telephone number.
  2. 02State that the agency did not make the decision and cannot explain it.
  3. 03Tell the applicant they may obtain a free copy of the report within 60 days.
  4. 04Tell them they may dispute its accuracy with the agency.
  5. 05Keep a copy of the notice with the application.

Send it even when you are unsure

The notice costs nothing and there is no penalty for sending one that was not strictly required. The penalty runs entirely the other way.

Related in the binder