Tenant Screening Guide for Landlords: Legal, Consistent, and Thorough

This guide is for independent landlords who want to choose reliable tenants without running afoul of federal credit-reporting and fair housing laws. You will leave with a written screening policy, an application and consent process, a method for reading credit, eviction, and criminal reports, an income-verification routine, and a compliant adverse action notice.

Write your criteria before you advertise

Screening goes wrong when the standard is set after you meet the applicant. Decide in advance what qualifies someone, put it in writing, share it with every applicant, and review completed applications in the order they arrive. Consistency is your best fair housing defense, and it makes decisions faster.

These are examples, not legal minimums. Tailor them to your property and your state’s rules, then apply them the same way every time.

Build an application that asks the right questions

Your application should collect full legal names and dates of birth for adult occupants, contact information, current and previous addresses with landlord contact details for the past two to three years, employer and income information, the number of occupants, pets, vehicles, and a signed authorization to obtain consumer reports. Include a certification that the information is true and a statement that false information is grounds for denial.

Leave out questions about national origin, religion, disability, or plans to have children. You may ask how many people will live in the home; you may not ask about anyone’s pregnancy or family plans.

Check your state’s rules on application fees before you collect one. Some states cap the fee at a fixed dollar amount, limit it to your actual screening cost, require a receipt, or require a refund when no report is run.

Run credit, eviction, and background reports

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) gives landlords a permissible purpose to obtain a consumer report on a rental applicant. In practice, use a tenant screening company that verifies you as a landlord, gets the applicant’s consent, and delivers reports electronically. These reports are consumer reports whether they cover credit, rental history, or criminal records, which matters for the adverse action rules below.

How to read each one:

• Credit report. Focus on payment history with landlords and utilities, collections, and judgments rather than the score alone. A thin file is common for young or new-to-country applicants and is not the same as bad credit.
• Eviction records. A filing is not a judgment. Look for the outcome: dismissed, settled, or judgment for the landlord. Some states seal certain eviction records, and federal regulators have flagged accuracy problems with tenant screening data, so confirm that a record actually matches your applicant’s identity (full name plus date of birth, not name alone).
• Criminal records. See the section below before you use them.

When a report looks wrong, the applicant can dispute it with the screening company, and you can wait a reasonable time for a correction before deciding.

Verify income and rental history yourself

Screening reports rarely confirm income, and fake pay stubs are easy to produce. Request two recent pay stubs plus either a W-2, tax return, or two months of bank statements showing the same deposits. For self-employed applicants, ask for the last two tax returns and recent bank statements. For new jobs, an offer letter on letterhead works, but call the employer’s main line, found independently, to confirm.

Call the previous landlord, not just the current one, because a current landlord eager to remove a problem tenant has a reason to give a glowing reference. Confirm the owner’s name through county property records, then ask:

1. What were the dates of the tenancy and the monthly rent?
2. Was rent paid on time, and is any balance owed?
3. Did the tenant give proper notice before moving?
4. Was any of the security deposit kept for damage?
5. Would you rent to this person again?

Criminal history: the guidance changed, the risk did not

Criminal history is not a protected class under the federal Fair Housing Act. But because arrest and conviction rates differ by race and national origin, a policy that automatically rejects anyone with any record can be challenged as having an unjustified disparate impact. In 2016, HUD’s Office of General Counsel issued guidance applying that theory to criminal-records screening, including the point that arrests alone are not proof of conduct.

HUD has since withdrawn that 2016 guidance, effective September 25, 2025, as noted in a Federal Register notice published July 17, 2026. In January 2026, HUD also proposed removing its disparate impact regulation at 24 CFR 100.500; at our last check, that proposal had not been finalized. Withdrawing guidance does not change the Fair Housing Act itself. The Supreme Court recognized disparate impact claims under the Act in 2015, private plaintiffs and state agencies can still sue, and several states and cities, including New Jersey and Cook County, Illinois, have their own fair-chance housing laws that limit when and how you can consider records.

A defensible policy for most small landlords:

• Never deny based on arrests that did not lead to a conviction.
• Consider only convictions within a defined look-back period, and only offenses that bear on safety or property.
• Weigh the nature, severity, and age of the offense, along with evidence of rehabilitation the applicant offers.
• Run criminal checks only after an applicant otherwise qualifies, which some local laws require anyway.

Rules vary widely by state and city, so confirm with a local fair housing or landlord-tenant attorney before adopting a policy.

Adverse action notices under the FCRA

An adverse action is any unfavorable decision based even partly on a consumer report: denial, requiring a co-signer, charging a larger deposit, or setting higher rent. The FTC’s landlord guidance says you must give notice even when the report was only one factor. The notice must include:

1. A statement that you took adverse action.
2. The name, address, and phone number of the screening company that supplied the report, including a toll-free number for nationwide agencies.
3. A statement that the screening company did not make the decision and cannot explain why it was made.
4. Notice of the applicant’s right to a free copy of the report if requested within 60 days.
5. Notice of the right to dispute the accuracy or completeness of the report with the company.
6. If you used a credit score in the decision, the score and the key factors that affected it.

The law permits oral notice, but the FTC recommends putting it in writing, and a 2023 FTC post repeats that advice. Keep a copy. If you deny someone based on information from a source other than a consumer report, such as a former landlord’s phone reference, the FCRA also requires you to disclose the nature of that information if the applicant asks in writing within 60 days.

When you are done with the reports, the FTC’s Disposal Rule requires secure destruction, such as shredding paper and permanently erasing files.

Fair housing guardrails during screening

Federal law protects applicants based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, and disability, and many states and cities add more, including source of income. In places with source-of-income protection, you generally must count housing vouchers and other lawful income when applying your income standard. Our guide to fair housing rules for private landlords covers each protected class in detail.

Two screening-specific traps: offering a “better deal” or faster approval to some applicants and not others, and refusing to consider a reasonable accommodation, such as accepting a co-signer for an applicant whose disability limits their income. Keep applications, reports, notes, and notices for at least two years, the federal deadline for private fair housing lawsuits.

A repeatable screening workflow

1. Publish your written criteria with the listing.
2. Show the unit and give every interested person the same application.
3. Log each completed application with the date and time received.
4. Verify identity, then run credit and eviction reports with signed authorization.
5. Verify income documents and call the previous landlord.
6. Run criminal history last, applying your written policy.
7. Approve the first applicant who meets the criteria, or send a compliant adverse action notice.
8. File everything and shred what you no longer need.

Rental scams run in both directions, so learn the warning signs in our guide to avoiding scams when buying, selling, or renting by owner.

Next steps

• Turn your approved applicant into a signed tenancy with the lease agreement essentials.
• Review the full landlord setup in how to rent out your house by owner.
• Create a free owner plan for your rental at Get Started.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. FTC: Using Consumer Reports — What Landlords Need to Know
2. FTC Business Blog: Tenant Background Check Reports (2023)
3. FTC: Disposing of Consumer Report Information? Rule Tells How
4. Federal Register (July 17, 2026): HUD Office of General Counsel Withdrawal of Guidance Documents
5. Federal Register (Jan. 14, 2026): HUD Proposed Rule on the Fair Housing Act's Disparate Impact Standard