How to Write Tenant Screening Criteria — Before You List the Unit

Landlord Ledger · Guides for landlords with 2–10 units · Published August 21, 2026 · Updated August 21, 2026

Screening is where small landlords carry the most legal exposure and get the least guidance. The advice you find is usually either a legal treatise or a shrug. What actually reduces risk is mundane: write the rules down before you meet anyone, then follow them.

Why "before you list" is the whole trick

Fair Housing complaints are rarely about a landlord who intended to discriminate. They're about a landlord who made an exception. You let one applicant slide on the income multiple because they seemed nice, held the next one to it, and now there is a pattern with no innocent explanation on paper.

Criteria written in advance and published with the listing do three things at once: they filter out applicants who won't qualify (saving everyone time), they give you a script for the awkward conversation, and they are contemporaneous evidence that the standard existed before the applicant did.

What belongs in the criteria

Each item should be objective, measurable, and something you can actually verify:

• Income. A multiple of rent — 2.5x to 3x gross monthly is common — with what counts as verification (pay stubs, bank statements, tax return, benefit award letter, employer confirmation). Note carefully: many states and cities prohibit source of income discrimination, so a rule that excludes housing vouchers or benefits may be unlawful where you operate. Verify the amount, not its source.
• Employment or income stability. Stated as a period, not a feeling.
• Rental history. How many years, how many prior landlords you'll contact, and what disqualifies — e.g. an unpaid judgment to a previous landlord.
• Credit. A minimum score, or the specific factors you look at (open collections above a stated amount, current housing debt). Say which, and stick to it.
• Evictions. A stated lookback window rather than "any eviction ever" — several jurisdictions now restrict how far back you may look, or bar consideration of dismissed or sealed filings.
• Criminal history. The most regulated item on this list. HUD guidance and a growing number of state and local ordinances restrict blanket bans, require individualized assessment, and limit lookback periods. If you consider it at all, get local advice on how — a blanket "no records" policy is a real liability. (HUD Fair Housing.)
• Occupancy standards. Stated per bedroom, consistent with local occupancy codes — not as a rule about children, which is familial-status discrimination.
• Pets. Your pet policy is yours to set — but assistance animals are not pets, and requests for reasonable accommodation are handled under different rules entirely.
• Application process. How applications are ordered (first complete application, first qualified applicant), what fee applies, and what documents are required.

Applying them in the same order every time

Order matters, because it determines what you knew when you decided. A defensible sequence:

1. Publish criteria with the listing.
2. Take complete applications only; log the date and time each becomes complete.
3. Screen in the order received.
4. Verify income and employment against documents.
5. Contact prior landlords with the same script of questions.
6. Run the credit/background report through a consumer reporting agency, with the applicant's written authorization.
7. Compare against the criteria — pass or fail, item by item.
8. Approve, or issue adverse action; if you approve someone further down the list, record why the earlier applicants failed which criterion.
9. Sign, collect the deposit, and complete the move-in condition record.
10. Destroy the consumer report securely once you no longer need it, keeping the decision record instead.

Step 8 is the one to be pedantic about. "Approved the second applicant" invites the question. "First applicant failed the income multiple at 2.1x; second applicant met all criteria" answers it.

The adverse action notice

If information in a consumer report contributes to a decision that disadvantages the applicant — denial, a higher deposit, a co-signer requirement, a shorter term — the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires you to give an adverse action notice. It tells the applicant that a report was used, names and gives contact details for the consumer reporting agency, states that the agency did not make the decision and cannot explain it, and informs them of their right to a free copy of the report and to dispute its accuracy. (FTC: Using Consumer Reports — What Landlords Need to Know.)

And if a credit score contributed to the decision, the notice must also disclose the score itself, its source, the date it was created, and the range of possible scores under that model. It costs nothing and takes a minute. Skipping it is a common — and easily proved — compliance failure, and one of the easiest to establish after the fact — because the absence of a notice is itself the evidence.

Keep the decision, destroy the report

Screening reports are consumer reports, and the FTC's Disposal Rule requires secure destruction rather than ordinary disposal. The record worth keeping is your own: the criteria in force, the date, which criteria the applicant met or missed, and whether an adverse action notice went out. That's the document that answers a Fair Housing question, and it contains nobody's credit file. More on this in what records to keep and for how long.

Educational information, not legal advice. Landlord–tenant rules vary by state and city and change over time — check your local rules, and take real disputes to a local attorney.