How to write rental criteria: a DIY landlord’s workbook for consistent, fair tenant screening

Write your rental criteria before the listing goes live: name the factors you will review, check them against local law, share them with applicants, and record how you applied them. When three applications arrive for one unit, a written standard is more useful than a gut feeling you cannot explain.

This is general information, not legal advice. Fair housing law applies to rental decisions. States and cities can add protections and screening rules, including rules about source of income, criminal history, and application fees. Check the law where the property is located or ask a local attorney before finalizing your policy.

Why write your rental criteria down?

A written policy explains your process and settles what matters before anyone applies. Owners debating how subjective screening should be often run into the same problem: an unwritten rule changes under pressure.

The policy states what you review; the application log records what happened. You need both.

Step 1: Know the ground rules first

The Fair Housing Act protects people from housing discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability. Many states and cities protect additional groups, which can include source of income. Check your local law before writing criteria for a specific property.

The federal statute also bars rental notices and advertisements that indicate a preference or limitation based on a protected class. Read both the listing and the criteria sheet for that kind of language. Do not assume that making a rule written makes it lawful.

Step 2: Pick the categories for your one-page policy

Your written tenant screening criteria can cover:

• Income and how you will verify it, including what proof of ability to pay you will consider.

• Credit and rental history, if you use them, and how you will review the information.

• Criminal history, if you consider it at all. You do not need to include it by default.

• Pets, with assistance-animal requests handled separately.

• Occupancy, application fees and refunds, and the order in which complete applications are reviewed.

• Any defined alternatives you will offer when an applicant cannot supply the usual form of proof.

These are topics, not recommended thresholds or a universal legal template.

Step 3: Make each criterion objective and explain alternatives

Describe the information you will request and how you will assess it in plain words. If two people reading the same complete application would interpret a sentence differently, rewrite it. As landlords discussing fixed and flexible criteria point out, flexibility works better when you define the alternative before applications arrive, rather than making it up for one person.

For example, decide in advance whether you will review a co-signer or another form of proof of ability to pay, subject to local law. Offer the same stated route to everyone who needs it. Request missing information in the same way from everyone.

Assistance animals are a separate issue from pets. The federal statute requires reasonable accommodations in rules or policies when needed to give a person with a disability an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling. Handle each accommodation request individually, rather than treating it as an ordinary pet exception.

For occupancy, federal law leaves room for reasonable local, state, and federal maximum-occupancy restrictions. Familial status is protected: count people consistently, do not make a limit stricter than needed, and check the applicable occupancy rules. Do not copy a generic people-per-bedroom number into your policy.

Criminal-history rules also vary by location. Some owners do not consider it. If you do, check your approach locally; the FTC notes that a blanket refusal based on any criminal record may violate the Fair Housing Act.

Step 4: Check the draft against local law

Mark the policy Draft — local review needed until you have checked the property’s state and city rules. Source-of-income protections, limits on criminal-history inquiries, application fees, required disclosures, and other screening rules are not uniform. A question about a voucher calls for a check of local law, not a stock yes-or-no answer; landlords raise exactly that question.

Ask a local attorney or fair housing organization to review unclear rules for the property’s location.

Step 5: Share it and apply it in the same order

Put a version and effective date on the approved policy. Share the criteria with every applicant through a consistent channel, such as the listing or application materials, and answer questions using the same document. Use the same screening questions, request the same types of information, and review complete applications in the order you set out in the policy.

One option is to review the first complete application first; choose an order that fits local rules and stick to it. As owners discussing written criteria before applications suggest, decide before you know who is next. Do not change criteria mid-listing.

Step 6: Log each decision separately

For each application, record the date, the policy version used, what information was reviewed against each applicable criterion, any defined alternative or accommodation considered, and the outcome. Keep factual notes, not guesses.

If a tenant screening report played any part in a denial or in different terms, such as a required co-signer or higher rent or deposit, the FTC says an adverse action notice is required. Check the FTC requirements and local law before sending it. The Rental Criteria Builder does not store applicant information, log decisions, run reports, or send notices. Keep your decision record separately; an Applicant Review Checklist can help organize that work.

Step 7: Review the policy between listings

Recheck local requirements periodically. Make a new dated version between listings and save the version each applicant received.

Want your criteria on one page? The free Rental Criteria Builder helps you write your own policy, flags some statewide rules in the states it covers and potentially risky wording, and produces a one-page document to share with applicants plus a separate checklist for applying it consistently. It does not check city or county rules, score or rank applicants, recommend who to accept or reject, or give legal advice. You still need to check your local law.

One last thing

The criteria sheet is only half the job. Write it first, apply it evenly, and keep a record of each decision. This workbook is not legal advice; check the rules for your property or ask a local attorney before using the policy.