Those of you that have attended one of my landlord-tenant law seminars or read my prior posts on screening tenants know that in my opinion the screening process is the single most important aspect of being a landlord. If done properly, the screening process can save a landlord from many headaches such as: having to evict a bad tenant, repairing your damaged rental property, dealing with other tenants complaining about your loud and disruptive tenant, and/or having your rental property declared to be a public nuisance due to the bad behavior of your tenant and his/her guests. By properly screening your tenants you will significantly reduce your exposure to the above situations.
One key aspect of the screening process is having and using written screening criteria. Screening criteria sets forth the minimum requirements that an individual must meet in order to be able to rent from you. Looking at it another way, screening criteria also sets forth what will cause an applicant to be denied rental from you.
Here is an example of written screening criteria. Please be aware that this screening criteria is pretty stringent. I am not saying that you should or should not use this criteria - you must determine what criteria works for you and that is based on many factors which I will not be addressing in this post. I am linking to this sample screening criteria so that you have some examples of permissable (and legal) criteria so that you can better understand this post.