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Texas landlord · tenant screening
Download the Texas residential rental application — screens prospective tenants with application-money elections, a standalone screening-report authorization, and the disclosures federal and Texas law require — in fillable Word and fillable PDF, with the Texas Tenant Selection Criteria sheet, the Texas Completion & Compliance Guide.
Renting out property in more than one state? This page is the Texas application — each state's edition is built to its own screening and application-money law.
Every file below is included: the fillable Word application, a fillable PDF, the Texas Tenant Selection Criteria sheet, and the Texas Completion & Compliance Guide.
The real document — not a mockup. Page 1 of the form included in your download.
Every part of the form, in order — the application summary, eighteen sections, and the office-use page.
About this form
A residential rental application is the landlord's first line of protection: it collects the applicant's identity, household composition, rental history, employment and income, and references, and it carries the disclosures and signed authorizations that make lawful tenant screening possible before a lease is signed.
Texas law adds two requirements this edition builds in. First, the application-money rules of Tex. Prop. Code §§ 92.351–92.355: every pre-lease sum is either a nonrefundable application fee or a refundable-if-rejected application deposit; an applicant who receives no acceptance notice by the seventh day is considered rejected; and bad-faith failure to make a required refund carries a $100 penalty, three times the amount retained, and attorney's fees. Second, the § 92.3515 tenant-selection-criteria rule: printed criteria must be made available with the application, and the applicant signs a statutory acknowledgment — printed bold and underlined in the form, as the statute requires.
The Texas Tenant Selection Criteria sheet in this kit is the printed notice § 92.3515 requires: the five statutory grounds for denial are pre-printed, you fill in your property's standards, and making it available with each application satisfies the Texas timing rule.
Your Texas Completion & Compliance Guide covers the state specifics: the money elections, criteria timing, the seventh-day deadline, refund duties, screening-report and adverse-action rules with a template notice, and recordkeeping, retention, and disposal duties.
Each adult occupant completes and signs a separate application and screening authorization. No notarization is required; electronic signatures are honored.
ILRG provides self-help legal forms and download support. PublicLegal landlord forms are provided for you to complete with your own property and screening information. Screening rules vary by state and change frequently — the Completion & Compliance Guide explains the rules in your state and the steps that keep this application within them. If you are not 100 percent satisfied after purchasing from us, contact us for a refund.
The Texas residential rental application in fillable Word (.docx) with a fillable PDF, the Texas Tenant Selection Criteria sheet (the printed notice Tex. Prop. Code § 92.3515 requires), and the Texas Completion & Compliance Guide (money elections, deadlines, refunds, adverse action, and recordkeeping). A completed sample is available as an optional add-on.
It collects everything a landlord needs to screen a prospective tenant before signing a lease: identity and contact details, household composition, rental history, employment and income, optional references and vehicle information, and a signed certification. It also carries the federal disclosures and the standalone signed authorization that allow you to obtain consumer and tenant-screening reports lawfully.
Texas Property Code § 92.3515 requires you to make printed tenant selection criteria — and the grounds on which an application may be denied — available to the applicant at the time the application is provided, and to obtain the applicant’s signed acknowledgment. If you reject an applicant without making that notice available, you must return the application fee and any application deposit. This kit includes the criteria sheet, and the application builds in the statutorily modeled acknowledgment, printed bold and underlined as § 92.3515(d) requires.
Under Tex. Prop. Code §§ 92.351–92.355, an application fee is a nonrefundable screening charge and an application deposit is refundable if the applicant is rejected. An applicant who does not receive notice of acceptance by the seventh day after submitting a completed application is considered rejected, and the deposit must be refunded. The application’s Section 1 money disclosure walks the owner/manager through the elections, and the office-use block tracks the deadline.
Texas law permits consideration of criminal history when it is part of your disclosed written tenant selection criteria (§ 92.3515(a)(1)). The application never asks applicants to self-report criminal history. An optional owner/manager election in Section 13 — used only when your criteria sheet includes criminal-history screening — authorizes obtaining criminal-history information through a consumer reporting agency after the applicant’s signed authorization, within Texas consumer-reporting limits and federal fair-housing duties, and with a mitigation review before a final denial.
Yes. Each adult occupant completes and signs a separate application and a separate Screening Report Disclosure and Authorization before any consumer report is obtained about that person. Never write another adult’s SSN, ITIN, date of birth, or identity information on someone else’s application.
If a consumer report contributed in whole or in part to the denial — or to a conditional approval such as a higher deposit — federal law requires an adverse-action notice identifying the reporting agency, stating that the agency did not make the decision, and explaining the applicant’s free-report and dispute rights. The Completion & Compliance Guide includes a template notice. Texas refund duties apply independently: refund the application deposit on any rejection, and refund the fee as well if the criteria notice was not made available.