Choosing a Tenant: Fair and Legally Sound Criteria for 2026

If you rent out an apartment, at heart you want only one thing: someone who pays the rent reliably and treats the home with care. But between that legitimate goal and the actual choice lies a legal minefield – the German General Equal Treatment Act, the GDPR, and a series of Federal Court of Justice (BGH) rulings that set out precisely what you may and may not ask. Get it wrong, and a harmless rejection quickly turns into a damages claim or a data-protection breach.

This guide sorts the picture for private and small-scale landlords: what you may legitimately assess, where the lines run, which documents you may even request at which stage – and why objective, documented criteria are not only fairer, but your best protection against accusations of discrimination.

What You May Legitimately Assess#

You may – and should – assess everything that concerns a tenant's financial capacity and reliability. The Federal Court of Justice has confirmed exactly this: questions about profession, employer, income and assets, as well as the name, address and contractual conduct with the previous landlord, are generally permissible because the landlord needs them to form a picture of creditworthiness and reliability – and they must be answered truthfully Quelle.

Legitimate criteria include:

• Income and employment. Net income, profession, employer and the length of the employment relationship. A common market rule of thumb: the warm rent should not exceed roughly one third of net income – often framed as "cold rent no more than a third of net pay". This is not a statutory threshold, just a tried-and-tested guide to affordability.
• Creditworthiness. A SCHUFA credit report or a comparable proof – with clear limits on when you may obtain it (more on that below).
• Self-disclosure. The Selbstauskunft with details about the person, income and prior tenancy.
• Freedom from rent arrears. You may ask whether obligations to the previous landlord were met. A certificate of freedom from rent arrears (Mietschuldenfreiheitsbescheinigung) is a common proof – though the previous landlord is not obliged to issue one.
• Number of people moving in and the planned use of the apartment.

Importantly, the burden of proof shifts in your favor if an applicant lies in response to a permissible question. Anyone who misstates income, an ongoing insolvency or rent arrears risks having the contract rescinded for fraudulent misrepresentation or terminated without notice Quelle.

The AGG: Which Characteristics Are Off-Limits#

The AGG (AGG) prohibits disadvantage on grounds of ethnic origin, gender, religion or belief, disability, age and sexual identity (§ 1 AGG) Quelle. In the letting of housing, the civil-law prohibition of disadvantage under § 19 AGG applies.

Here is the part that matters for private landlords: the law distinguishes by how many apartments you let.

• Landlords with more than 50 apartments are legally running a "mass transaction" (Massengeschäft). For them, all the characteristics of § 1 AGG apply.
• Landlords with up to 50 apartments are subject to the AGG only in a limited way – but the prohibition of disadvantage on grounds of ethnic origin always applies, without exception (§ 19(5) AGG) Quelle.

Anyone who breaches the prohibition of disadvantage risks claims under § 21 AGG: cessation, removal and damages – including compensation for non-material harm. Those affected must, however, assert their claims within two months Quelle.

Forbidden Questions – and the "Right to Lie"#

From the AGG and the BGH case law follows a clear list of questions you may not ask, because they touch the intimate or private sphere or link to a protected characteristic. If you ask them anyway, the applicant has the so-called "right to lie": they may leave the question unanswered or knowingly answer it falsely, without you gaining any rights from it later.

Off-limits in particular are questions about:

• Pregnancy and family planning / desire for children – discriminatory and irrelevant to creditworthiness.
• Religion, belief and party affiliation.
• Origin, nationality and ethnic background.
• Sexual orientation and relationship status / marriage intentions.
• Illnesses and disabilities.
• Criminal record (blanket) – a general question about a criminal record is impermissible.

An applicant may stay silent on impermissible questions, or even answer them knowingly falsely. A false answer to a forbidden question gives the landlord no handle later on.

The line therefore runs along one question: Does the information concern financial reliability – or the person as such? Income, previous landlord, rent arrears: allowed. Faith, origin, desire for children: off-limits.

Data Protection: Which Documents You May Request When#

Even permitted information may not be collected at any time you like. The GDPR demands data minimization – you may only collect what is genuinely needed at each step. The German data-protection authorities' conference (DSK) cast this into three phases in its guidance "Obtaining self-disclosures from prospective tenants" (Version 2.0, 2026) Quelle.

1. 1

   Phase 1 – the viewing: only the bare minimum

   At the viewing appointment, data collection is tightly limited. As a rule, only name and contact details are permissible, so you can reach prospects. Income questions, salary statements or ID copies have no place here – whoever collects a full self-disclosure with proofs at the viewing stage is collecting too early and too muchQuelle.

2. 2

   Phase 2 – serious rental intent: more questions, not all

   Once a prospect seriously declares the intention to rent the apartment, the legal situation shifts. Now you may ask about household size, profession, employer and income, as well as about concrete solvency risks (such as an ongoing insolvency or known payment defaults). Marital status, pregnancy, criminal record, religion and origin remain off-limits.

3. 3

   Phase 3 – after the choice: obtain proofs

   Only once you have decided on a person may you request proofs: salary statements for the last few months, a credit report, and where applicable a certificate of freedom from rent arrears. You don't need these documents from any of the other applicants – so don't request them.

New in Version 2.0 (2026) is an explicit warning notice in the sample questionnaire: no unsolicited submission of documents that are not required. For data-protection reasons, you may not even process personal data you don't need – not even when an eager applicant sends it to you unprompted Quelle.

SCHUFA, Creditworthiness and the Deletion Duty After a Rejection#

On creditworthiness the DSK is especially strict. You may not obtain your own SCHUFA report if the applicant provides one themselves or if sufficient proof of creditworthiness already exists. Only concrete, purpose-related proofs are allowed – blanket inquiries to credit agencies and demanding a complete data self-disclosure under Art. 15 GDPR (which contains far more than renting requires) are impermissible Quelle. In practice that means: SCHUFA offers a dedicated credit report for letting purposes that bundles exactly the relevant data – and it belongs in Phase 3, not at the start Quelle.

And the part many landlords overlook: what happens to the rejected applicants' data? It must be deleted once it is no longer needed for the selection – as a rule no later than six months after receipt. "Blacklists" of rejected applicants are impermissible Quelle.

Permitted vs. Impermissible at a Glance#

Objective Criteria as Protection#

The strongest argument for a factual, documented selection process is not fairness alone – it is the burden of proof. If a rejected applicant credibly establishes indications that suggest disadvantage on grounds of a protected characteristic, the other side bears the burden of proving that no breach occurred (§ 22 AGG) Quelle. In other words: in a dispute, you have to show that your decision was factual.

This is exactly where pre-defined, comprehensible criteria help. Whoever applies the same objective standards to every application – affordability of income, creditworthiness, completeness of the dossier – and documents it, can justify a rejection at any time without falling under suspicion of discrimination. An arbitrary "doesn't fit" can do precisely the opposite.

Objective, weighted criteria are doubly useful: they lead to the more reliable tenant – and in a dispute they are your proof that the decision was made on the merits.

On WOHNO this is the very starting point: the portal puts the emphasis on fit, not the sheer number of applications. Instead of a hundred unfiltered emails, you receive applications measured against the same weighted criteria – the WOHNO score bundles income affordability, creditworthiness and dossier completeness into a transparent assessment that is the same for everyone. It replaces neither a legal review nor your own decision, but it makes the selection process structured, comparable and documentable. How to organize the process before and after is shown in our guides to writing a compelling listing and to organizing applications and viewings. If you let as a team, the article on organizing letting in a team adds further pointers.

Choose tenants in a structured, traceable way

Create your listing on WOHNO and compare applications against objective criteria that are the same for everyone – with a transparent score instead of gut feeling.

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FAQ – frequently asked questions#