How this page is written
Property screening criteria are facts, and we state them as facts with a date. What we don’t do is characterize blanket exclusions or publish claims about which communities “accept felonies.”
There’s a legal reason as well as an editorial one. HUD’s 2016 guidance addresses disparate-impact exposure where criminal-history screening operates as a blanket exclusion, and that remains a live area. Properties are expected to apply individualised assessment rather than an automatic bar, and the specifics vary by operator.
So: this explains how the check works and what to ask. For your particular record, the answer comes from a specific property’s written criteria — which is exactly what we confirm before you spend an application fee. Broader context is on second chance leasing.
What the check actually looks at
A tenant background check typically pulls county, state, and national criminal records, plus sex-offender registry data. What matters to the outcome is usually four things:
Offense class. Felony, misdemeanor, or lesser. Most criteria distinguish sharply here.
Offense category. Many criteria treat violent offenses, offenses against persons, and drug-manufacture offenses differently from property or non-violent offenses.
Recency. How long since conviction or since release. This is the lookback window.
Disposition. Conviction, dismissal, deferred adjudication, or pending. A pending charge is handled differently from a resolved one.
Lookback windows, in general terms
Windows are set by each property’s criteria, and the range across the market is wide. Typical structures look something like this:
| Category | Common window shape |
|---|---|
| Felony, violent or against persons | Longest window; some criteria have none |
| Felony, non-violent or property | Commonly a defined multi-year window |
| Misdemeanor, non-violent | Shorter window, often a few years |
| DWI | Treated by many criteria as its own category |
| Deferred adjudication (completed) | Varies; may not count if sealed or non-disclosed |
| Dismissed or acquitted | Frequently not counted |
| Pending charges | Often deferred until resolution |
These are shapes, not numbers to rely on. Two communities on the same street can run different windows, and criteria change when properties change hands or management companies.
Ask for the criteria, not for an opinion
“Do you accept felonies?” gets a guess from whoever is at the desk. “Can you send me your published rental criteria including the background lookback windows?” gets a document. The technique is in how to get screening criteria in writing.
Deferred adjudication and nondisclosure
Texas has mechanisms that affect what appears on a background check. Completed deferred adjudication may be eligible for an order of nondisclosure in defined circumstances, which limits disclosure to most private parties including screening companies.
Whether that applies to you is a legal question, not a leasing one. It’s worth a conversation with a legal aid organisation — Lone Star Legal Aid serves the Houston area — before you assume a record is permanently visible.
Pull your own report first
Same principle as tenant screening. Knowing what a property will see, before they see it, lets you correct errors and prepare an accurate explanation. Records get mismatched to similar names more often than you’d expect, and disputing that after a decline is much harder than before an application.
Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, if you’re declined on the basis of a consumer report you’re entitled to an adverse action notice identifying the agency that supplied it. Ask for it. That’s how you find and fix a bad record.
What helps an application
Time, documentation, and everything else in the file.
A completed sentence with years since, a stable rental history afterwards, comfortable income headroom, and a current landlord reference all carry weight where criteria allow individualised assessment. A short factual written statement — what happened, when, what’s changed — is standard and worth preparing rather than improvising. Knowing what’s actually on your file first helps here too: pull your own tenant screening report before a property does.
What we’ll do
Confirm the specific published criteria at the specific properties on your list, in writing, before you spend anything. Tell you plainly where the odds look poor rather than sending you on tours that end in a decline.
We don’t guarantee approval, and we don’t publish claims about who accepts what. You’ll know where you stand before you apply — that’s the promise, and it’s the one that saves you money.