A Beginner’s Guide to the Pet Screening Process

A Guide To Pet Screening For Landlords And Tenants

Pets can be a liability for any homeowner—the potential for noise and damage aren’t always appealing—but on the other side of this coin, pets can offer a number of benefits to property managers and landlords looking to bring in extra income or improve their landlord-tenant relationships.

When deciding to allow pets in your rental units, it’s vital to have a pet screening process in place. This not only ensures legal compliance and the safety of your rental property but also allows you to provide a safe home for your tenants’ furry friends. In this article, you’ll learn about the basics of pet screening, its benefits, and legal requirements to keep an eye on regarding pets and your rental business.

What is Pet Screening?

So, let’s start at the beginning: What is pet screening? As a landlord, pet screening is a process that goes along with tenant screening to ensure that a potential resident’s pet is a good fit for your rental unit and aligns with policies that you enforce. Are they in good health and pest-free? Are they well-behaved around neighbors and other pets? Are they a good fit for the size of the unit? These are all questions you’ll want to answer through pet screening.

Pet screening not only ensures that the animals are compliant with the policies of your rental business, but that also ensures that you are compliant with laws surrounding emotional support animals or service animals (more on this later). Whether you manage one unit or an entire apartment complex, building a pet screening profile is a vital step in screening new tenants and can help mitigate potential damage or other issues in your rentals.

The Basic Steps of Pet Screening

We’ve established that pet screening is important for pet-friendly apartment complexes, but how do you screen pets as a landlord? There are several important steps regarding approving a pet for your rentals that you should follow with each potential pet parent tenant, and the guide below will help you to understand each part of this process.

1. Ask tenant to fill out a pet application

The first step in the pet screening process is gathering key information about the pet itself, which is done through a pet application that the potential tenant fills out as part of the rental application. You can either provide your own paper or digital copy for the tenant to complete, or you can use an online third-party service for pet screening to collect and analyze this information.

What is a pet application and what information should you request? Pet screening applications usually include details about the pet related to their age, breed, weight, and behavioral history, as well as documentation for vaccination records or spay/neuter certificates. Some landlords even ask for references from past landlords who can speak to the behavior of the pet. Think of it almost like a pet resume!

2. Look over the pet screening profile

After receiving the pet screening profile from the prospective tenant, you’ll need to look it over to assess whether the animal meets the necessary criteria for your property, such as size and breed requirements or behavioral history.

If the animal is small, like a hamster or fish, you may decide to proceed with accepting them to the apartment. If you’re still unsure about the decision, you can also move forward with an in-person pet interview to get a better sense of the behavior and size of the pet, helping you to solidify your choice.

3. Finalize your decision and communicate conditions

After learning about and possibly meeting the potential tenant’s pet, you can make an informed decision to either reject or accept the pet into the rental unit. If you accept, you’ll then need to send the tenant a lease agreement that includes rules and regulations for the pet including leash requirements, noise complaints, and cleanliness around the rental and in community areas.

Additionally, the lease agreement is where you’ll communicate expectations for additional pet fees such as a pet security deposit or monthly pet rent, which can cover any damage or extra cleaning needed once the tenant moves out.

4. Continue to check in with tenant about pet

Accepting the pet to your rentals shouldn’t be the last step. It’s important to continue checking in periodically (such as during inspections) to ensure the animal isn’t violating any of your property rules and continues to meet your rental business’ pet standards. This way, concerns can be addressed directly and quickly.

Pet Screening Application Checklist

When creating a pet screening application, it can seem overwhelming to keep track of what information you should request from potential tenants. Below, we’ve created a checklist of questions to ask on a pet screening application so you can make an informed decision about any pets moving into your units.

Basic Pet Information

• Number of animals: The first thing you should know is how many animals would be residing in your unit. This gives you a good idea of whether the animals will be able to live comfortably in the available space.
• General pet details: It’s important to collect basic information about the pet(s), such as breed, weight, size, and age. This helps you understand the type of pet the tenant has and if they meet your specific pet criteria or guidelines.

Health

• Health records: It’s vital to confirm that the animal has received all required vaccinations to ensure that the pet (as well as other pets in the community) remain happy and healthy.
• Dietary or medical requirements: Some pets have dietary and medical needs or other special circumstances, and by knowing this information up front, you can plan for any arrangements that need to be made prior to move-in.

Behavior

• Interaction with other pets: Communal living isn’t for every pet—that’s why it’s important to learn about how a pet interacts with other animals to see if they exhibit any aggressive or noisy behavior (such as lunging at other pets or barking excessively).
• Interaction with other humans: Along with other pets, you should ask how the pet interacts with humans, as well. Do they jump at people or demonstrate any dangerous behavior? This information is important not only for determining the pet’s best living environment, but for keeping your other tenants safe, too.

Habits

• Training: Is the pet house-trained? Have they received any other types of training? A trained pet is less likely to use the bathroom on your floors and is more likely to be well-behaved in your rental unit.
• Daily habits: Asking a tenant about the habits of the pet, like what times they’re at the apartment, will help you to assess the potential impact on other tenants.

Experience in Past Rentals

• Any past rental history: It’s a good idea to learn whether the pet has past experience in other rentals and if they thrived in those past rental environments. This can help you estimate how the pet may adjust and adapt to living in your rental.
• References from past landlords: If the pet has lived in other rental units, you can follow up that question by asking for references from past landlords who can speak to the behavior of the pet.

Why You Should Screen Pets as a Landlord

Screening potential pets comes with a myriad of benefits, both for tenants and for landlords. As we’ve covered, it’s a great way for you as a landlord or property management company to learn more about the prospective tenant’s pet (and the tenant!) before they move into your rental unit, but it offers other advantages you should consider, too.

Increased Income

Unless the pet in question is a service animal, you’ll be able to charge the tenant pet fees or a pet security deposit on top of their base rent. This not only increases your monthly income but can help to combat the costs of potential damage or other issues that the pet may cause to the apartment.

Reduced Risk of Damage

By learning more about a pet or possibly even meeting them before they move into your rental, you can discern whether the animal seems to have potential to be violent or cause damage to your property that you’ll have to pay to fix later. With a thorough, proper screening process, you can make an effort to decrease the likelihood of needing to deep clean carpet stains, replace clawed furniture, etc.

Fewer Behavioral Violations

Along with less damage comes fewer behavioral violations, especially if you’ve taken the time to meet the pet in person. This means you’ll already have a good idea of the pet’s behavior around strangers and other pets before you accept them into your rental, decreasing the chances of a pet who is violent toward others or causes frequent noise complaints such as excessive barking.

Improved Tenant Retention

Above all else, being a pet-inclusive landlord can increase your tenant retention. Many landlords won’t allow tenants to house pets in their rentals, limiting options for renters with four-legged friends. By giving tenants the opportunity to keep their pets on your property, you can retain these responsible pet owners for longer—up to 21% longer—and mitigate turnover or vacancy costs.

Understanding Pet Screening Legal Requirements

When running a rental business, the kind of pets you allow is largely up to you to decide, but you don’t always have complete control, especially when legal requirements come into play. Depending on your location, some laws may vary, so it’s important to do your research to ensure that you stay compliant with applicable pet screening laws.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protects people with disabilities from discrimination against their service animals. In the context of renting an apartment, this means that service animals are exempt from pet policies such as restrictions on breed, size, or weight, and that tenants with service animals cannot be charged extra fees or deposits to house the animal.

Fair Housing Act (FHA)

The federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) prohibits discrimination against tenants for characteristics such as race, national origin, sex, religion, color, familial status, or disability. Protections for tenants with disabilities includes those with service animals (much like ADA laws) but also includes those with emotional support animals (ESA).

Along the same lines as ADA laws, the FHA prohibits landlords from denying a tenant the right to have an ESA or service animal and from charging extra fees for them, regardless of your standard pet policy.

State-Dependent Laws

Though you’re responsible for following the FHA and ADA, you may also live in a state with further legal requirements for pet screening in rental units. For example, Colorado has enacted a law banning breed restrictions and excessive pet rent/deposits, in addition to adding new pet protocol for evictions in rental units, regardless of service animal or emotional support animal status. By learning the laws for your state and city, you can avoid legal issues surrounding pet screening later.

Pet Screening Best Practices

Setting best practices for effective pet screening in your rental business can keep you on track with both your business needs and the interests of your tenant so that both parties are happy throughout the pet screening process. Below, we’ve listed some best practices to consider adopting as you begin accepting pets into your units.

• Establish clear rules and expectations. To avoid issues later, establishing clear pet policies is a no-brainer. This includes weight or breed limits, noise complaint procedures, and any other rules important to your business. Don’t forget to implement pet policies that are FHA-compliant for service animals (more on this below).
• Communicate these expectations to your tenants. It’s important to be as upfront and honest about fees, expectations, and any other stipulations that you enforce in your rentals so tenants can make an informed decision about living on your property.
• Stay consistent and fair throughout the process. Setting up your process and specific criteria needed for pets to qualify for your apartments is a good first step in pet screening, but upholding these criteria and remaining consistent and fair is crucial, too. By ensuring you don’t show discrimination or favoritism to any tenant, you can set yourself up for success in potential legal disputes.
• Comply with the FHA, ADA, and state/local laws. As a landlord, you’ll be responsible for following not only the Fair Housing Act and Americans with Disabilities Act but also state and local laws related to service animals, too. Since these animals are not considered pets, you must accommodate them without enforcing any extra fees or restrictions unless they pose a direct threat or cause undue burden—and this information should also be included in your lease.

Conclusion

Allowing pets in your rental units can come with many advantages for your business, but the safety of your property and compliance with the law should come first as a landlord, making pet screening a crucial step in accepting tenants into your properties. With a clear understanding of pet screening and why it’s important, you’ll be better equipped to handle pets when you come across them in your search for new tenants.