Finding the right tenants

Choosing the right tenant can be the most important decision you ever make as a landlord.

A good landlord who meets their legal obligations will have virtually no problems managing a property if they have a good tenant who pays the rent on time, keeps the property tidy and plans to stay long term.

In fact, finding a good tenants is so beneficial that most landlords actually avoid doing in-tenancy rent increases to ensure the good tenants stay for as long as they can. 

In contrast, where things go wrong with a bad tenant, they can go really wrong. Long court delays mean a bad tenant can potentially lead to significant losses if they don't pay rent or cause damage. This can be financially ruinous for some landlords.

All of which means it's really important to choose the right tenants from the outset. And that starts with who you select for viewings when you advertise your property.

Right now, is there huge demand for rented homes, so you may find yourself overwhelmed with people interested in viewing your home. Especially if you try to arrange viewings for every potential applicant. 

You can cut down on these numbers and start to find the right tenant by asking a few key screening questions before viewings, minimising the risk of selecting a bad tenant from the start. 

Once your advert is up and running, you should find the enquiries start rolling in. It's best at this stage to have an automated reply to enquiries that lays out the key questions you have.

You can then use the responses (or lack of responses) to identify who to arrange vewings with. 

The full list of right questions to include in this automated reply will ultimately depend on what you want from the tenancy.

For example, your key questions may change depending on whether:

• You plan to let to students, young professionals or families
• How long you want the tenants to live in the property for
• You are happy to accept pets or not
• The property is, or you are comfortable with it becoming, a house in multiple occupation.

With that in mind, you will need to tailor your questions to suit your own requirements. In general though, most landlords will generally want to ask the following questions of applicants:

• If successful, when would you prefer to move in?
• Are all applicants related to each other?
• Why do you want to live in the local area?
• Why are you planning on moving?
• How long would you plan to live here if successful?
• How many adults will live in the property?
• How many children would live with you and what are their ages?
• Are you planning on living in the property yourself? If not, what is your reason for making this enquiry?
• Can you provide a guarantor if needed?
• Can you provide references from a previous landlord or employer if needed?
• The annual rent is £XX, how do you intend to pay this if successful?

Depending on who you plan to let to, and the facilities available you should add to this with questions like:

• Are you a full time student?
• Do you have any pets?
• Do you smoke?
• Do you require parking?
• The property is furnished/unfurnished. Is this suitable for you?
• Do you plan to bring any of your own white goods into the property?

The responses to these questions should give you a good idea of who meets your criteria and who would be suitable for your home. It also gives you an idea of who could provide supporting references. 

You can then invite the applicants with the best answers to a viewing. 

Questions you should leave for the application stage

While it's important to get a sense of whether the applicants can pay their rent we don't advise you take too much information yet. You should really only ask for personal information you need at the appropriate stage to comply with the data protection laws in the UK. 

Avoid questions that would be better off being asked by your referencing or as part of the tenant application form. For example, you wouldn't want to ask for the applicant's:

• Current landlord's contact details
• Bank statements
• Credit score
• Criminal record or history of CCJ

These are all potentially important questions but you won't be verifying this for every applicant so it's hard to justify as something that is absolutely necessary for the purposes of GDPR. These kind of sensitive questions are best left until you have an idea who you want to let to. 

What you can't ask tenants: preventing discrimination

Remember when you are screening applicants, you must not discriminate against someone, directly or indirectly, based on the following protected characteristics:

• Disability
• Gender reassignment
• Pregnancy and maternity
• Race
• Religion or belief
• Sex
• Sexual orientation

These are protected characteristics under the Equalities Act 2010 and, should you give the impression you have discriminated against someone one the basis of a protected characteristic, you may find yourself on the wrong end of a legal challenge.

There are two other protected characteristics in the Equalities Act 2010 - age and marriage/civil partnership status - but these are not protected characteristics for housing. So, should you wish, you can refuse someone who you believe is too old or too young to live in the property.

Direct and indirect discrimination

Discrimination is a tricky area as the law covers direct forms of discrimination and indirectly discriminating against a group.

Direct discrimination occurs in relatively straightforward cases where someone deliberately treats another person differently because of one or more of these characteristics. For example, refusing to let a property to someone because of the colour of their skin would be an example of direct discrimination.

On the other hand, indirect discrimination occurs when a policy, practice, or rule that applies to everyone disproportionately affects people with a particular protected characteristic. This can be unintentional and much harder to identify.

For example, court cases have found that blanket bans tenants who receive benefits is a form of indirect discrimination against women and people with disabilities because they are more likely to be in receipt of benefits. 

Avoiding perceived discrimination

Rather than running the risk of indirect discrimination, it is better to stick to avoid any questions that relate to these topics and stick to establishing that they can pay the rent, intend to stay for a long time, and that they can provide references if needed.

Renters' Rights Act changes

On 1 May 2026, the Renters' Rights Act will come into force. From that date you will also not be able to directly, or indirectly discriminate against prospective tenants because they receive benefits or have children under the age of 18 who may live with them.

For further information on these changes see our guide on avoiding rental discrimination after the Renters' Rights Act.

Screening applicants is just part of the application process and we recommend that you make use of our various templates and services covering the entire process.

These include:

• A guide on what to include in your advert
• Our guide to tenant referencing
• NRLA Tenant Referencing Service
• NRLA holding deposit form and guidance