Quick Answer: A tenant screening report typically returns five things: a credit report and score, a criminal background search, an eviction history search, income and employment verification, and prior landlord references. The report itself is the easy part. The decisions come from having written criteria set before you ever pull it, applied identically to every applicant.
One of the questions we get often from owners who are considering hiring us is, "How do you do tenant screening?"
We've had some owners come to us with a problematic tenant who stopped paying rent, and they said they didn't really do a thorough screening but instead just said simply “he seemed nice at the showing”.
We are not telling that story to make fun of these owners.. They are smart people who made a reasonable-feeling judgment about someone standing in front of him. That is exactly the failure mode. Screening exists because in-person impressions are almost uncorrelated with whether someone pays rent for twenty-four months.
The Five Components
Credit report and score
You get a score, an accounts summary, payment history, and collections. What most landlords do with this is look at the number and stop, which throws away most of the information.
The number matters less than the pattern. A 640 built on a medical collection from four years ago and otherwise clean payment history is a different applicant than a 640 built on three current delinquencies and rising balances. The first person had a bad year. The second person is having a bad year right now.
Look specifically for: recent late payments, whether balances are climbing, any prior collections from a landlord or property management company, and total debt service relative to stated income. A high score with credit cards at 95 percent utilization is telling you something.
Criminal background search
This is the component that carries the most legal exposure, and it is worth being careful. Blanket exclusions based on any criminal record have drawn significant fair housing scrutiny, because of documented disparate impact. The defensible approach is an individualized assessment: nature of the offense, how long ago, and whether it bears on the tenancy.
Write your standard down before you run the report and apply it the same way every time. Consistency is both the fair thing and the thing that protects you if a decision is ever challenged.
Eviction history
This is the highest-signal item on the report and the one people most often skip because it costs a little extra.
Important nuance for Virginia: unlawful detainer records are searchable through the court system, and a filing is not the same as a judgment. Cases get filed and dismissed, sometimes because the tenant paid, sometimes because the landlord made a procedural error. A filing is a question to ask, not a conclusion. A judgment for possession within the last few years is a much stronger signal.
Ask about it directly. How an applicant explains a prior filing tells you nearly as much as the record itself.
Income and employment verification
The standard most Northern Virginia landlords use is gross monthly income at roughly three times the rent. That is a reasonable starting point, not a law of nature.
Where it needs adjustment: applicants with significant assets and modest income, self-employed applicants whose tax returns understate cash flow, and government or contractor households where a security clearance and a stable agency posting are meaningful stability signals that a pay stub does not fully capture.
Verify rather than assume. Pay stubs get edited. Offer letters get fabricated. We have seen both, and the quality of the fakes has gotten noticeably better. Call the employer at a number you found independently, not the one written on the application.
Prior landlord references
Actually call them. Not email. Call.
And call the landlord before the current one. The current landlord has an incentive to give a glowing reference for a tenant they want gone. The previous one has no stake in the outcome and will tell you the truth.
Three questions do most of the work: Did they pay on time? What condition was the property in at move-out? Would you rent to them again? That last question generates more useful hesitation than any other question in screening.
The Part That Matters More Than the Report
Write your criteria down before you advertise the property.
Minimum credit score. Income multiple. How you treat eviction filings versus judgments. Your criminal history standard. Pet policy. Occupancy limits. Whether you accept co-signers and under what conditions.
Then apply it to every single applicant identically.
This is the single most protective thing a landlord can do, and it is free. Fair housing complaints are rarely about someone being overtly discriminatory. They are about inconsistency, which looks exactly like discrimination from the outside and is very hard to defend after the fact. If you made an exception for one applicant and not another, the only question that will matter is why.
What Is Changing in Virginia
Worth putting on your calendar now: beginning July 1, 2027, Virginia landlords will be required to provide prospective tenants with disclosures about application fees, tenant selection criteria, consumer report information, and the factors that trigger denial, before collecting an application fee or applicant information.
If you already have written criteria, this change is administrative. You are formalizing a document you effectively already have. If you do not, you have roughly a year to build one, and building it now means you get the fair housing protection of consistent criteria in the meantime rather than starting the clock in June 2027.
That is the practical read on most of the 2027 changes, honestly. They are codifying practices that careful operators already follow.
Application Fraud Is Not Hypothetical Anymore
The fake documents have gotten good. Pay stubs, bank statements, and employment letters can now be generated convincingly enough that visual inspection is no longer sufficient. We have seen applications with internally consistent fabricated documents that would have passed a casual review.
What still works: independent verification. Call the employer at a number you looked up yourself. Ask for bank statements through a verification service rather than as uploaded PDFs where you can. Check whether the deposit amounts on the statement actually reconcile with the stated pay schedule, because fabricated statements frequently do not.
And be suspicious of urgency. An applicant pushing hard to skip steps and sign immediately is the most reliable red flag there is, and it has not changed in twenty years.
The Cost Comparison Nobody Runs
Thorough screening costs a modest amount per applicant and takes a few days.
A nonpaying tenant in Virginia now costs you a 14-day pay-or-quit notice, court filing, a hearing date subject to the docket, a writ of possession, and then the actual removal, with lost rent accruing across every one of those steps. Add turnover and any damage on the way out.
We have watched owners refuse a screening upgrade to save money and then absorb five figures on the tenant they approved. The screening cost is not an expense. It is the cheapest insurance in this business.
Frequently Asked Questions
What credit score should a landlord require in Northern Virginia?
Many landlords in this market use 650 as a starting threshold, but the score matters less than the pattern behind it. A modest score built on an old medical collection is a different risk than the same score built on current delinquencies. Set a written standard and apply it consistently.
Can I deny a Virginia applicant for a prior eviction filing?
A filing is not a judgment, and cases get dismissed for many reasons including the tenant paying. Treat a filing as something to ask about and a recent judgment for possession as a much stronger signal. Whatever standard you set, write it down and apply it identically to every applicant.
How do I verify income if an applicant is self-employed?
Ask for tax returns and bank statements rather than pay stubs, and look at whether deposits are consistent over time. Self-employed applicants often have stronger cash flow than their returns suggest, so the goal is establishing reliability rather than hitting a specific multiple.
What are the new Virginia screening disclosure requirements?
Effective July 1, 2027, landlords must disclose the application fee amount and refundability, their tenant selection criteria, consumer reporting information, and the factors that lead to denial, all before collecting an application fee or applicant information. Building a written criteria document now satisfies most of it in advance.
Should I use a screening service or run checks myself?
A service is generally worth it for the eviction search and consolidated credit reporting alone, which are difficult to assemble reliably on your own. Landlord reference calls are the one component you should still do yourself, because the useful information comes from tone as much as content.
