Write the Questions Down First

Before anything else, commit your criteria and your questions to paper and use them identically for every applicant.

Consistency is the legal requirement and the operational advantage at the same time. Fair housing exposure comes overwhelmingly from inconsistent application rather than from written policies, since a landlord who asks one applicant about their weekend plans and another about their income has created a comparison they cannot explain. HUD's guidance on fair housing rights and obligations covers the protected classes involved.

Consistency also makes the answers useful. If you ask everyone the same eight questions, the outliers become visible. If you improvise, everything sounds fine.

Questions for the Applicant

Start with occupancy and duration, because they predict turnover cost. Ask who will live in the unit and their relationship to the applicant, how long they expect to stay, and why they are moving. That last one is the highest yield question on the list, and the answer is worth listening to carefully. A job change or a growing family is ordinary. Vagueness or hostility toward the current landlord is information.

Move to the practical mechanics. Ask when they want to move in, whether they can pay the deposit and first month at signing, and how they intend to pay rent each month. An applicant who has not thought about the deposit has told you something about their cash position.

Ask directly about income and employment. What is your gross monthly income, who is your employer, how long have you worked there, and is your income salaried, hourly, commission, or self employment. Variable income is not disqualifying, but it changes what documentation you need.

Ask the uncomfortable questions plainly rather than hoping the report covers them. Have you ever been late on rent, and if so what happened? Have you ever had an eviction filed against you, whether or not it went to judgment? Do you have any unpaid balances from a previous rental? Applicants who volunteer a problem with an explanation are consistently better bets than applicants who let you discover it, and the question gives them the opening.

Ask about pets, vehicles, and smoking, matched to your actual policies, and about service or assistance animals only in the narrow way fair housing law permits, which is covered below.

Finally, ask whether there is anything in their credit or rental history you should know about before you pull the report. This is the single most useful question in the interview, because it separates candor from concealment before you have any leverage.

The Prior Landlord Call

This is the step most landlords skip and the one that surfaces what databases cannot.

Call the landlord before the current one. The current landlord may want the tenant gone and has an incentive to give a glowing reference. The previous one has no stake in the outcome and will usually tell you the truth.

Verify you are talking to a real landlord rather than a friend. Ask questions only a landlord would know: what was the monthly rent, what were the lease dates, what was the unit address and unit number. Answers that do not match the application are the point of the exercise.

Then ask the substantive ones. Did they pay on time, and if not, how often were they late and by how much? Did they give proper notice? What condition was the unit in at move out? Did you withhold any of the deposit, and for what? Were there complaints from neighbors? And the closing question that gets the most honest answer: would you rent to them again?

Listen to hesitation as much as to content. A landlord who pauses before answering the last question has told you something a screening report never will.

Employment and Income Verification

Verify income rather than accepting stated income. Call the employer's HR line rather than the number on the application, and confirm employment status, position, start date, and whether the position is permanent, temporary, or probationary.

Ask for documentation matched to the income type: recent pay stubs for salaried employees, bank statements for self employed applicants, an offer letter for someone starting a new job, and benefit award letters for fixed income applicants. Pay stubs are trivially forged, so bank connection based verification through a screening platform is stronger where available.

Most conventional properties want gross income at two and a half to three times rent. Where an applicant falls short but has other strengths, a guarantor or a larger deposit within statutory limits are the standard accommodations, applied consistently.

Questions You Cannot Ask

Federal fair housing law prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability, and many states and cities add categories including source of income, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, age, and military status.

The practical translation is a short list of things to avoid entirely. Do not ask where someone is from, about their accent, or about citizenship beyond any legally required verification. Do not ask about religion or religious observance. Do not ask whether an applicant is pregnant, plans to have children, or how many children will live in the unit beyond total occupancy for occupancy standard purposes. Do not ask about disability, medical conditions, medications, or why someone uses a mobility device. Do not ask about an assistance animal's training or the applicant's diagnosis, and do not charge pet fees or deposits for assistance animals.

You may ask whether an applicant can meet the requirements of the lease, and you may ask the same objective financial and rental history questions of everyone.

Criminal history requires particular care. HUD's 2024 guidance on screening rental applicants explains why overbroad criminal screening policies can be challenged under the Fair Housing Act's discriminatory effects framework, and a growing number of state and local fair chance housing ordinances restrict how far back you may look, when you may ask, and whether individualized assessment is required. Check your local rules before including any criminal history question.

Source of income protections in many jurisdictions mean you cannot refuse an applicant for using a housing voucher, and cannot ask questions designed to screen for it.

Using the Answers

Compare the interview against the report rather than treating them separately. An applicant who disclosed a 2023 eviction that appears on the report has been honest. One who denied any rental problems and shows a rental collection has told you the most important thing about themselves.

Weight the answers correctly. Prior rental payment behavior and verified income predict outcomes better than credit score, and a rental collection matters far more than a medical one. Our guides to reading a tenant screening report and renting with collections on your credit cover how each item reads.

Document the decision. Keep the completed question sheet, the reference call notes with dates, and the criteria you applied, for every applicant including the ones you approved. That file is the answer to a complaint two years later.

The Step After the Decision

If you deny an applicant, or approve them conditionally with a higher deposit or a required cosigner, based even in part on a screening report, the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires an adverse action notice identifying the company that furnished the report and informing the applicant of their rights, including a free copy from that company within 60 days.

This applies to conditional approvals, not just denials, and it is the compliance step landlords most often miss. Most screening platforms will generate the notice, and you should confirm yours does. Our overview of the platforms is in best tenant screening services.

Good questions reduce bad debt. They do not eliminate it, because job losses and medical events happen to applicants who screened perfectly, which is why the documentation and placement discipline covered in how tenant screening protects your rental business matters alongside the front end work. Landlords with balances that survived a move out can reach Advanced Collection Bureau at 321-633-4999 or through its residential services page.