Texas Rental Application

1. Your tenant selection criteria. When you hand out the application you must make available a printed notice of your criteria and the grounds for denial, including criminal history, previous rental history, current income, credit history, and inaccurate or incomplete information (Tex. Prop. Code § 92.3515(a)).
2. A signed acknowledgment. The applicant signs a statement in the wording set by law. It can be part of the application if it is underlined or in bold (Tex. Prop. Code § 92.3515(c), Tex. Prop. Code § 92.3515(d)); without a signature the law presumes the criteria were not made available (Tex. Prop. Code § 92.3515(b)).
3. The usual questions. Identity, rental history, income, occupants, pets, vehicles, references and consent to screening.

This form prints your criteria at the top, the acknowledgment in bold with its own signature line, and blank fields for the applicant.

An application fee is a nonrefundable payment to cover the cost of screening. An application deposit is money given with the application that must be refunded if the applicant is rejected (Tex. Prop. Code § 92.351). You can charge either or both; the form lists them separately so the applicant knows which part comes back.

If you do not give notice of acceptance on or before the seventh day after the applicant submits a completed application, the applicant is treated as rejected (Tex. Prop. Code § 92.352(a)). Rejecting one co-applicant rejects all of them (Tex. Prop. Code § 92.352(b)). A phone call to the applicant or a letter postmarked by that date counts as notice (Tex. Prop. Code § 92.353(a)).

A rejected applicant gets the application deposit back. If you reject someone and never made your selection criteria available, you must return the application fee too (Tex. Prop. Code § 92.3515(e)). If the applicant asks for the refund by mail, mail it to the address they give (Tex. Prop. Code § 92.353(b)). Keeping a fee or deposit in bad faith costs $100, three times the amount kept and the applicant's attorney's fees (Tex. Prop. Code § 92.354).

Write the rules you actually use, in plain numbers: minimum income as a multiple of rent, how far back you look at evictions and money owed to landlords, which credit problems count, which criminal convictions and how recent, and that false information is a reason to deny. The form comes with a realistic example you can edit. Apply the same criteria to every applicant and keep a copy of each signed acknowledgment.

Once you approve the applicant, sign a Texas lease agreement written to the Texas Property Code, and walk through the unit together with a move-in checklist before the keys change hands.

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