How To Avoid Discrimination Lawsuits in Tenant Selection

One of the great fears of landlords, in selecting tenants, is that those who are rejected will feel slighted in some way and bring a discrimination lawsuit upon you. The fair housing laws in the US clearly state that you can’t refuse to rent to someone based on a variety of factors such as race, creed, religion, gender, etc (very much like the employment laws on the matter). So, given that information, how do you protect yourself? By clearly writing out why a particular tenant was rejected and those reasons could be credit history, insufficient income, poor past behavior with respect to the references contacted, etc. Ultimately you should document why a tenant was rejected to protect yourself later on.