Tenant Screening for San Antonio Landlords: Criteria That Hold Up

Most landlord problems in San Antonio start at screening. The tenant who stops paying in month four, the one who breaks the lease and disputes the deposit, the one whose emotional support animal turns into a Fair Housing complaint — almost all of it traces back to an application you approved without written criteria, or rejected without documentation. Fix the intake and you fix most of the downstream mess.

Below is a screening framework built for a single-family or small-multifamily owner renting in Bexar County. It assumes you are self-managing or supervising a manager, and it assumes you would rather not defend a discrimination complaint or an eviction that gets dismissed for a bad notice.

Write your criteria down before you list

Fair Housing exposure is not theoretical. HUD and the Texas Workforce Commission Civil Rights Division both take complaints against small landlords, and San Antonio adds its own protected classes on top of the federal seven (race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, disability). The city's fair housing ordinance also covers source of income and veteran status. If you approve one applicant with a 620 credit score and reject another with a 640, and you cannot show a written standard, the second applicant has a case.

Before the property hits the MLS, Zillow rentals, or a For Rent sign, put your criteria on paper:

• Minimum gross monthly income (3x rent is standard in San Antonio; 2.5x is defensible if you're renting sub-$1,500)
• Minimum credit score, or the score bands you use
• Employment/income verification method (paystubs, offer letter, tax returns for self-employed, LES for military)
• Rental history requirement (typically 24 months verifiable, no prior evictions in the last 5–7 years)
• Criminal history policy — and this one has teeth
• Pet policy, including which breeds if any, weight limits, and pet deposit/fee
• Occupancy limit (HUD's guidance is 2 per bedroom plus 1, but read the city code before you go tighter)

Hand the same one-page criteria sheet to every applicant. If you deny someone, the reason must be one of the items on that sheet.

The criminal history trap

A blanket "no felonies ever" policy will lose a HUD complaint. The 2016 HUD guidance on criminal records — still the operating standard — requires an individualized assessment: nature of the offense, time since, evidence of rehabilitation. What holds up:

• A look-back window (commonly 7 years for felonies, 3 for misdemeanors)
• Exclusion only for offenses that bear on tenancy — violent crimes, drug manufacturing, arson, sex offenses on the registry
• No exclusion based on arrests that didn't lead to conviction

Write the policy this way and apply it consistently. Do not eyeball the report and decide.

Application deposits under § 92.3515

Texas Property Code § 92.3515 requires that if you charge an application fee or application deposit, you must provide the applicant your tenant selection criteria in writing, and the applicant must sign an acknowledgment. Skip that step and the applicant can demand the fee back plus $100 plus attorney's fees. Use the TAA (Texas Apartment Association) application if you're a member; if you're not, the residential lease application on TREC's site references the same acknowledgment. Either way, the signed criteria sheet goes in your file.

Charge a real fee that covers the screening report — $40–$60 is normal in the San Antonio market. Do not charge $200 as a "holding fee" without a written agreement about what happens to it.

Income verification that actually verifies

Paystubs get faked. Two things you should do on every applicant:

• Call the employer at a number you found independently, not the one on the application. HR will confirm employment and often income.
• For self-employed applicants, ask for two years of tax returns (Schedule C or K-1) plus three months of business bank statements. A single 1099 proves nothing.

For active-duty applicants from JBSA-Lackland, Randolph, or Fort Sam Houston, the Leave and Earnings Statement (LES) is the gold standard. It shows base pay, BAH for the San Antonio ZIP, and any special pays. Do not ask a servicemember to pay more than 3x rent from base pay alone — BAH counts as income, and refusing to count it is a fair housing issue under the city's source-of-income protection. Also, know that any lease you sign with a servicemember is subject to SCRA § 3955: on PCS or deployment orders of 90+ days, they can terminate with 30 days' notice after the next rent due date. That's not negotiable and cannot be waived in the lease.

Rental history — call the landlord before the current one

The current landlord has an incentive to give a glowing reference to get rid of a bad tenant. The prior landlord has no such incentive. Always call one back.

Ask specific questions:

• Move-in and move-out dates (compare to the application)
• Rent amount and whether it was paid on time
• Were any 3-day notices to vacate served under § 24.005?
• Was the deposit returned in full, and if not, why
• Would you rent to them again

If the applicant lists a property manager, verify the management company exists and the property is under their portfolio. Fake references from a cousin's cell phone are common.

Assistance animals are not pets

Under the federal Fair Housing Act, an assistance animal — service animal or emotional support animal — is not a pet. That means:

• No pet deposit, no pet fee, no monthly pet rent
• No breed or weight restriction
• You can ask for documentation from a licensed provider if the disability is not obvious, but you cannot demand the diagnosis

Online ESA letters are common and mostly valid under current HUD guidance. You can push back on obvious mills (a $29 letter from a provider in another state who never met the applicant), but do it carefully and in writing. The tenant is still liable for any damage the animal causes — that comes out of the regular security deposit under § 92.104.

What most people get wrong

• Approving on gut feel and denying on paper. If you have no written criteria, every denial looks like a pretext. Write the criteria, then apply them.
• Different rules for different applicants. Waiving the credit minimum for the applicant you liked in person, and enforcing it against the one you didn't, is the fact pattern of a discrimination case. Waive nothing, or waive with a written exception that any applicant could qualify for (larger deposit, co-signer).
• Skipping § 92.3515 acknowledgment. Landlords collect a $50 fee and hand back nothing in writing. That fee is refundable on demand and the landlord loses the small-claims case every time.
• Refusing Section 8 or VASH vouchers. San Antonio's fair housing ordinance includes source of income. Blanket "no vouchers" language in your ad is a complaint waiting to happen. You can still require the tenant to meet your income and screening criteria on the tenant-paid portion.
• Overcharging security deposit and calling it "first, last, and deposit." Texas doesn't cap the deposit, but combining first month + last month + deposit + pet deposit into a $6,000 move-in wall functions as a filter that disparately impacts protected classes. Keep the deposit reasonable (1–1.5 months) and document any risk-based increase.
• Not documenting the denial. Send an adverse action letter citing the specific criterion the applicant failed, and if a consumer report was used, include the FCRA-required notice with the reporting agency's contact info. This is federal, not optional.

Build the file you'd want in court

For every applicant — approved or denied — keep the signed criteria sheet, the application, the screening report, notes from the reference calls with dates and times, and the adverse action letter if applicable. Store it for four years. If an eviction ends up in JP court at Precinct 1, 2, 3, or 4, or a fair housing complaint lands on your desk 18 months later, that file is the whole ballgame.

Once your screening process is tight, the rest of self-management gets easier — pricing, lease drafting, and renewals become routine. If you want to list the property to a wider pool of qualified San Antonio renters, you can post it on HomeFinder at /list-your-home, or read more landlord-side guides at /resources. And if the screening workload is more than you want to carry, /agents will connect you with local property managers who run this process every day.