How to choose good tenants: a landlord's screening guide

Bad tenant choices are expensive. A void period alone now costs the average landlord nearly £1,000 in lost rent — and that is before you factor in arrears, damage disputes, or the legal fees that can follow. The good news is that “good tenant gut-feel” can be turned into a repeatable, evidence-based process that protects you legally and gives you the confidence to make the right call every time. Here is how.

Start before the viewing: ask the right questions upfront

Time spent qualifying applicants before they set foot in your property is never wasted. A short phone call or written questionnaire can surface obvious mismatches immediately — move-in date, pet ownership, number of occupants — without discriminating against anyone.

Keep questions objective and property-specific: “The property is a top-floor flat with no lift — is that going to work for you?” is perfectly reasonable. What you cannot do is ask anything that would let you filter on a protected characteristic. Under the Equality Act 2010 those are age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.

Write a consistent list of pre-viewing questions and ask every applicant the same ones. If you ever face a challenge, your paper trail shows you treated everyone equally.

Know what you can and cannot screen for — especially post-May 2026

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 introduced new anti-discrimination rules that apply to all assured and regulated tenancies on and from 1 May 2026. It is now unlawful to refuse a tenancy — or make an applicant less likely to enter one — solely because they receive benefits (Universal Credit, legacy Housing Benefit, Employment and Support Allowance, Child and Working Tax Credits, State Pension and Pension Credit, and similar) or because they have, or would have, children at the property. “No DSS” policies are banned outright, and subtler forms of exclusion count too.

Local authorities can issue civil penalties of up to £7,000 for a breach (the government’s statutory guidance sets a starting point of £6,000), with further penalties for continuing breaches and for repeat breaches within five years.

This does not mean you cannot set clear criteria. You can still run affordability checks, require income to meet a set multiplier, and carry out full referencing — as long as you apply those criteria consistently to everyone and treat all forms of income equally.

Set a clear affordability threshold and stick to it

The most common industry convention is that a tenant’s gross annual income should be at least 30 times the monthly rent (equivalent to rent not exceeding roughly 33% of gross income). Some landlords use a 35× or 40× multiplier; guarantors are typically assessed at 36×. This is a market convention, not a statutory rule — so whatever figure you use is your choice.

Whatever you settle on, document it, apply it to every applicant, and make sure you treat Universal Credit, employment income, and pension income on equal terms. A blanket “employed applicants only” policy is likely to constitute indirect discrimination.

Run a proper reference check — and get it done professionally

A professional reference check ties together the hard evidence you cannot reliably gather yourself:

• Credit check — CCJs, IVAs, insolvency orders, general credit history
• Employment/income verification — confirms salary, employment type, and start date
• Previous landlord reference — rent payment history, condition of the property, whether the landlord would let again (you can sense-check that the reference is genuine by confirming ownership against the Land Registry title)
• Right to Rent check — mandatory in England for every adult who will occupy the property as their only or main home, before the tenancy starts; non-UK nationals with digital immigration status can share a nine-character share code (it begins with “R”) via the GOV.UK “View a tenant’s right to rent” service

A thorough tenant reference through PropertyGoose costs £14 (or less at volume) and covers all of these checks. For most landlords this is the single highest-return step in the whole process. It converts subjective impressions into documented evidence and gives you a clear basis for your decision that would stand up to scrutiny.

Use viewings to observe, not to interrogate

By the time you meet an applicant in person, the referencing process should do most of the heavy lifting. Use viewings to assess fit with the property (how carefully do they look around? do they ask sensible questions about the boiler and the bins?) rather than to probe personal circumstances.

Avoid questions that touch on why someone is moving, their family plans, employment sector, or anything that could be read as probing a protected characteristic. If an applicant volunteers information — say, that they are self-employed — you can factor in what documentation you will need for referencing, but do not treat it as a red flag in itself.

Ask for and verify supporting documents

Before issuing a tenancy agreement, request:

• Last three months’ payslips or equivalent income evidence (an SA302 tax calculation for self-employed applicants)
• Recent bank statements (usually three months)
• Photo ID
• Right to Rent documents or share code

Keep dated copies of everything. For Right to Rent, you need a record of when the check was carried out. Get this wrong and you face a civil penalty of up to £10,000 per disqualified occupier for a first breach, rising to £20,000 for repeat breaches.

If you are uncertain how to handle self-employed applicants, those with non-standard income, or applicants relying entirely on benefits, a professional referencing service will assess affordability consistently and give you a documented outcome — far safer than making a judgement call alone.

Make the decision on evidence, then document it

When you have reference results back, base your decision on the referencing outcome, affordability check, and Right to Rent compliance — not on impressions or preferences. If you decline an applicant, note the objective reason (for example, “failed affordability threshold — gross income 22× monthly rent against a 30× requirement”). You do not have to share this with the applicant, but you should keep the record.

If you accept an applicant with caveats — a guarantor, a larger deposit where that is lawful, a shorter initial tenancy — document why. Clear decision-making protects you if a discrimination challenge ever arises.

The bottom line

Good tenant selection is not about instinct. It is about designing a consistent, fair process and using the right tools to gather genuine evidence. That means qualifying applicants early, applying the same affordability criteria to everyone, running a proper reference check that includes credit, employment, and previous landlord history, and ticking off the legal boxes — Right to Rent, and the new benefit and children discrimination rules — every single time.

The cost of getting it right is small. PropertyGoose tenant referencing starts at £14 and runs seven days a week, with a typical turnaround of 24 to 72 hours, so it rarely needs to hold up a let. If you want to see what a compliant, evidence-based screening process looks like in practice, book a quick demo.