How Do You Handle Tenant Screening Without Violating Fair Housing Laws?

Original post

Hi everyone, I'm fairly new to managing rental properties and wanted to get some advice. I'm in the process of setting up a more thorough tenant screening process, but I want to make sure I’m doing it the right way — especially when it comes to staying compliant with Fair Housing laws.

How do you all handle things like credit checks, background checks, and rental history verification while making sure you're treating every applicant fairly? Are there specific questions you avoid or steps you always follow?

Reply by Roger Thomas

As you're new, I highly recommend you pick up a couple of NOLO books that will help you in your landlord journey. They were invaluable to me when I first started out. 1. Every Landlords Guide To Managing Property, 2. Every Landlords Guide To Finding Great Tenants. They will help you with many aspects including your question about complying with Fair Housing.

In answer to your specific question, for credit/background checks we use Rentprep which specializes in these checks and will provide reports compliant with state/federal laws. You just need to apply the same analytical criteria to the reports for every applicant. But, my advice is to only run the credit/background check on the applicant who you think might be the most qualified (or first to apply depending on your state's regulations). For landlord references, use a standard form and ask the exact same questions of each landlord for every applicant. As a general rule, have a standardized process and criteria for selecting a tenant and follow it for every single applicant.

Reply by Bryon Stout

I just use Zillow for all of that. The potential tenant goes on zillow, pays $35 ( I think thats the price ) once and can submit unlimited applications on zillow for a month. Honestly, EVERYONE uses zillow.