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BlogArrowLandlording & Rental PropertiesArrowThe Landlord’s Guide to Effective (& Legal) Tenant Screening
Landlording & Rental Properties

The Landlord’s Guide to Effective (& Legal) Tenant Screening

Drew Sygit
Expertise: Business Management, Landlording & Rental Properties, Real Estate News & Commentary, Real Estate Marketing, Personal Development, Real Estate Investing Basics
106 Articles Written

The word “discrimination” has gained a bad flavor in American mouths in the past fifty years or so — but stop and think about it.

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We celebrate it when a chef has a discriminating palate or when a business man has a discriminating taste in suits. To discriminate literally just means, “to decide which of something is preferable.” We use “discrimination” as a negative word when we use it in a legal sense because we’re almost always talking about kinds of discrimination that have been outlawed because they’re based on factors that aren’t actually relevant (or fair).

What a Landlord CAN’T Legally Discriminate Against

Federal housing laws make it illegal for a landlord to discriminate based on:

  • Race
  • Religion
  • National origin
  • Age (with an exception made for senior-citizen communities)
  • Family status
  • Physical or mental disability
  • Gender

Further state laws make it illegal in many places to discriminate based on:

  • Martial status
  • Sexual orientation and gender identity
  • Source of income (almost always in the form of “you must accept welfare as a valid source of income” — it’s always valid to discriminate if you have a strong reason to believe that someone’s income comes from an illegal source.)

Finally, as one last little catch in the whole discrimination question, all rental applicants must be asked the same set of questions. (Obviously, that set of questions is allowed to evolve over time — you just can’t ask a question of applicants A, B, and D while asking C something you didn’t ask the other three.)

Related: How to Handle an Untimely Tenant Death as a Landlord

What a Landlord CAN Legally Discriminate Against

So with all of those things off the table, is there anything that a landlord IS allowed to discriminate against? Absolutely — in fact, as we implied in the beginning, discrimination is the entire purpose of a rental application.

You can and should use your applications to discriminate based on:

1. Financial Means

You can’t discriminate against where the money comes from in some states, but you can always discriminate based on total amount of income. If a potential applicant isn’t making enough to satisfy for screening requirements, you can “discriminate” against them – as long as you apply the same requirements to all applicants.

2. References

Even the best tenants can experience a change in their life circumstances that will have them acting like utter loons. One of our longterm, high-satisfaction tenants just up and disappeared without warning one day, only to return almost two months later explaining that her mother had almost died, and she had left in a panic.

From that day forward, we have insisted that all of our tenant give us contacts that will know where to find them in a pinch — preferably their parents if they’re still alive — because if you can’t find a missing tenant, you lose money fast. So discriminating against people who can’t show you their connections to other living, breathing people is not just allowable, it’s downright wise.

3. Bad Behavior

A criminal record isn’t always an automatic decline — some people are still bearing the cross from something they did decades ago and haven’t ever repeated.

Related: Your Complete Guide to Effectively Handling Tenant Evictions

But if a prospective tenant has a criminal record, a bad reference from a previous landlord, and comes across as shifty and nervous during the interview, s/he’s hit the trifecta, and we pull the plug in a hurry.

4. Potentially Destructive Habits

Smoking, excessive drinking, cooking meth — there are lots of things an applicant could do with their time that would make them unfit to rent to, and it's part of your job as a property manager to figure those things out before they become a problem. The best time to do that is before you ever let them sign a lease — so use the application and screening process to expose as much of their potentially destructive behavior as you can.

Conclusion

In the end, the reason why we property managers screen our tenants comes down to a simple overriding responsibility: the responsibility we have to turn our clients’ properties into money in their pocket.

If we put lousy tenants in our clients’ properties, we’re going to reduce the value of their investment — and that goes against everything a property manager should stand for.

What’s your tenant screening criteria? Is there anything you’d add to my lists?

Jump in on the comments below!

By Drew Sygit
While in the mortgage business, Drew rose to a VP position at the first broker he worked for and then started his own company. In the pursuit of excellence, he obtained several mortgage designations and joined mortgage & several affiliate association Boards. He also did WebX presentations and public speaking. It was during this time he started personally investing in single-family rentals, leading him to also start Royal Rose Property Management with two partners. He also joined the Board of a local real estate investors association, eventually becoming its President. The real estate crash led to an offer from the banking industry to manage a Michigan bank’s failed bank assets they acquired from the FDIC. The bank acquired four failed banks from the FDIC, increasing from $100M in assets to over $2B while he was there. After that, he took over as President of Royal Rose Property Management. Today, he speaks at national property management conventions and does WebX presentations.
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28 Replies
    Brian
    Replied over 6 years ago
    Great article Drew! Question…..do you provide a written response to applicants who are denied or do you handle this via phone call?
    Drew Sygit
    Replied over 6 years ago
    BRIAN: federal law requires a specifically formatted decline.
    James W. Investor, Entrepreneur from Greenville, WI
    Replied over 5 years ago
    Got a link to an example of the “formatted decline” by chance? I’m curious how in depth it goes… for example, I had an email earlier today. I rented a place to a couple, then received an email from my craigslist ad on the property before I could remove the CL ad. I responded with “Sorry, already rented”. I’m assuming I’m safe there, but it never hurts to double check your assumptions. Thanks for the article!
    Drew Sygit Property Manager from Birmingham, MI
    Replied over 4 years ago
    @JAMES W.: there’s a difference between a prospect and an applicant. What you mention seems to be a prospect, in which case they wouldn’t require a formal decline.

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    Drew Sygit
    Replied over 6 years ago
    BRIAN: federal law requires a specifically formatted decline. Reply Report comment

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    Drew Sygit
    Replied over 6 years ago
    BRIAN: federal law requires a specifically formatted decline.

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    Drew Sygit
    Replied over 6 years ago
    BRIAN: federal law requires a specifically formatted decline. Reply Report comment

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    Brian
    Replied over 6 years ago
    Drew Thanks for the response. Could you tell me more about this format? Thanks
    Drew Sygit
    Replied over 6 years ago
    BRIAN: please check out this link to the Philadelphia Fed: https://www.philadelphiafed.org/bank-resources/publications/consumer-compliance-outlook/2013/second-quarter/adverse-action-notice-requirements-under-ecoa-fcra.cfm

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    Drew Sygit
    Replied over 6 years ago
    BRIAN: Google search Fair Credit Reporting Act and you’ll find it:)

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    Drew Sygit
    Replied over 6 years ago
    BRIAN: Google search Fair Credit Reporting Act and you’ll find it:)

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    ff_lover
    Replied over 6 years ago
    If a prospective tenant asks whether the landlord takes Section8 and can the landlord state that he/she doesn’t want Section8 bec of all the inspections/fixes trouble to deal with the State code (i.e. in Texas)?
    Drew Sygit
    Replied over 6 years ago
    FF_LOVER: We’ve never gotten a clear answer on this issue and haven’t explored it fully as we accept Section 8. The two answers we got: 1) You can’t discriminate against Section 8 as a source of income. Opposing 2) You can discriminate due to the regulations and paperwork. State laws may also come into play so check with a local real estate attorney and get their answer in writing!
    Wayne G.
    Replied over 6 years ago
    Currently in Maryland is it still legal to refuse to accept a housing voucher, and the required third party bureaucracy. Laws proposed to end this were defeated in each of the last few years. This will vary from state to state.

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    Drew Sygit
    Replied over 6 years ago
    FF_LOVER: We’ve never gotten a clear answer on this issue and haven’t explored it fully as we accept Section 8. The two answers we got: 1) You can’t discriminate against Section 8 as a source of income. Opposing 2) You can discriminate due to the regulations and paperwork. State laws may also come into play so check with a local real estate attorney and get their answer in writing!

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    Geoff Van Dusen
    Replied over 6 years ago
    Thanks for the information,
    Drew Sygit
    Replied over 6 years ago
    GEOFF: thank you for reading & commenting:)

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    Nathan Reeder
    Replied over 6 years ago
    Most credit report services offer not only criminal but eviction history background checks. Shows if the tenant ever had court for non payment of rent. The best reference comes from another professional management company. Check address history on credit report for potential A+ references. Thank you for the info on formatted decline!
    Drew Sygit Property Manager from Birmingham, MI
    Replied over 4 years ago
    @NATHAN REEDER : thanks for your comment.

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    Drew Sygit Property Manager from Birmingham, MI
    Replied over 4 years ago
    @NATHAN REEDER : thanks for your comment.

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    Drew Sygit
    Replied over 6 years ago
    NATHAN: thanks for sharing the additional info!

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    Wendy A.
    Replied over 6 years ago
    We use a screening company that yields credit, tenancy court, and criminal results. It also provides us with an adverse action letter template for us to use for declined applicants.
    Drew Sygit Property Manager from Birmingham, MI
    Replied over 4 years ago
    @WENDY A.: sounds perfect! Just be sure to save copies of your AAL’s in case you’re ever audited.

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    Frankie Woods Investor from Arlington, Virginia
    Replied over 6 years ago
    This is a great breakdown of the type of discrimination that will and won’t get you into trouble! The screening process is all about discrimmination in a way that protects the investor without stepping on the rights of the tenet. Great stuff, and I’ll be sure to use some of these as a transition into the scary world of landlording!
    Drew Sygit Property Manager from Birmingham, MI
    Replied over 4 years ago
    @FRANKIE WOODS: keep reading other sources and look for local Fair Housing seminars you can attend.

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    Joshua Caplan
    Replied over 5 years ago
    Can I openly discriminate against students in favor of professionals? Can I openly discriminate against unrelated roommates in favor of related roommates?
    Drew Sygit Property Manager from Birmingham, MI
    Replied over 4 years ago
    @JOSHUA CAPLAN: the one word answer is “no”. If you have concerns about applicant income, you can filter out those that don’t meet your consistently applied income requirements.

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    Deanna Opgenort Rental Property Investor from San Diego, CA
    Replied over 4 years ago
    Students vs professionals; No, but you can write your criteria such that it favors professionals (income level, 12 mos lease) Unrelated vs related roommates. ? Why would you want to?

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