{"id":65126,"date":"2019-02-28T12:21:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T20:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.redfin.com\/blog\/?page_id=65126"},"modified":"2023-02-06T09:33:18","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T17:33:18","slug":"tenant-screening-landlord","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.redfin.com\/blog\/tenant-screening-landlord\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenant Screening: 5 Simple Steps to Choosing the Right Tenants for Your Rental Property"},"content":{"rendered":"

Choosing the right rental tenants can be an overwhelming and confusing process for many landlords. If you don’t have a tenant screening system<\/a> in place before you begin advertising your vacant space, you could quickly find yourself in a frustrating situation that is costly in both time and money. These five simple steps will help you choose the best tenants and aid you in avoiding some common pitfalls that come from picking the wrong renters.<\/p>\n

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1. Abide by local, state, and federal laws<\/h2>\n

On the surface, this one sounds like a no-brainer. But, if everything related to renting regulations<\/a> was obvious, landlords wouldn’t get in trouble for things they didn’t realize they’re doing wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

Laws at all levels can be tricky, particularly because they can change on a whim, and there are dozens of tiny little clauses one may not know about unless their full-time job is keeping apprised of landlord\/tenant compliance. Even more confusing is the fact that rental regulations can vary widely from one city or county to the next. If you have two properties that are next to each other\u2014but they’re magically separated by an invisible locality line\u2014you could potentially be looking at two completely different sets of laws to which you need to adhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

Federal laws\u2014while not necessarily easier to understand – at least from a textbook perspective – have a lot more resources for landlords because they’re uniform across all fifty states. As such, there’s a lot of information that’s published in laymen’s terms to help property investors do the right thing when it comes to abiding federal laws.<\/span><\/p>\n

In any case, it can be easy for landlords\u2014especially those who are inexperienced with rental laws\u2014to mistake their\u00a0<\/span>ideal\u00a0<\/span><\/i>tenants with people who are\u00a0<\/span>lawfully<\/span><\/i>\u00a0the right renters. Let’s say you don’t like children. Your\u00a0<\/span>ideal<\/span><\/i>\u00a0renter may be an adult who doesn’t have kids, but the law would disagree. If you choose not to rent to someone who’s otherwise qualified but has a child, you’d be violating the familial status protections of\u00a0<\/span>Fair Housing Act<\/span><\/a>, which could quickly put you in hot water. This law also prohibits landlords from discriminating against potential renters based on:<\/span><\/p>\n