Do you have rentals in California? Are you involved in tenant screening or your property manager is screening them? It would well worth your time to make certain that anyone screening your tenants understand HUD’s guidelines on what constitutes housing discrimination.
These guidelines are intended to inform and educate landlords about discrimination during tenant screening. The guidelines clearly prohibit landlords from discriminating tenants based on Sex, Color, Race, Religion, Familial Status and National Origin.
To avoid violating any of these guidelines we have listed some of the most effective questions to use with your tenant applicants. These questions are:
- Is the rent close to what you are paying now?
- How is your credit rating?
- Have you written any Checks that have bounced?
- Are there any evictions in your rental history?
- Will your previous landlord say nice things about you?
- Any judgments or collection items on their credit report?
Tenant Screening is one of the toughest challenges you will face as a landlord since it’s very emotional for tenants who will not qualify to rent your property. That’s one of the reasons why so many landlords hire a property manager to help them with tenant screening and other tasks.