Tenant Screening & Discrimination: What UK Law Allows 2026

You're choosing between applicants and you want the one who will pay the rent and look after the place. Screening for that is not only allowed, it is sensible: a bad tenancy is expensive. But how you screen is tightly limited by the Equality Act 2010 and, from 2026, by the Renters' Rights Act 2025. The landlords who get sued are not the ones who reference carefully. They are the ones who apply blanket bans such as "No DSS" or "No children" that fall foul of discrimination law. Pet refusals come under the separate pet request rules; discrimination law comes in there mainly for assistance dogs.

This guide covers what you can and cannot do when choosing a tenant, why the common blanket bans are unlawful, and how to screen robustly on the things that actually matter: affordability and reliability.

Guidance, not legal advice.

The Equality Act 2010 in one paragraph

You must not discriminate against an applicant because of a protected characteristic. There are nine: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. Discrimination can be direct (treating someone worse because of a characteristic) or indirect (a policy that looks neutral but puts a protected group at a particular disadvantage and cannot be objectively justified). Indirect discrimination is where most landlords come unstuck, because it catches "neutral" rules that hit protected groups hardest.

Consistency is the point: the same questions and the same checks for every applicant. From £7.99 a month, LetCompliance takes every applicant through one application form from your shareable advert and orders the same full reference for each, £24.99 a check, so the file shows how each decision was made. Get started

"No DSS" / "No benefits" is unlawful

Refusing to let to someone because they receive Housing Benefit or Universal Credit has been ruled unlawful indirect discrimination by the courts. The reasoning: women and disabled people are significantly more likely to receive benefits, so a blanket "No DSS" policy disproportionately disadvantages people with those protected characteristics (sex and disability) and cannot be justified.

It does not matter whether the ban is written in an advert, applied quietly at referencing, or set as a mortgage/insurance condition. The effect is what counts. "No DSS" is still widespread, and still unlawful.

"No children", and what the Renters' Rights Act 2025 adds

Since 1 May 2026, refusing tenants because they have children has been banned, with a penalty of up to £7,000. On top of the Equality Act, the Renters' Rights Act 2025 introduced explicit rental discrimination rules. A landlord (or agent) must not refuse someone, or treat them worse, because they receive benefits or because they have children. Any term in a tenancy that tries to prevent children living at the property, or bars a tenant from claiming benefits, is void and cannot be relied on.

In short, the two grounds landlords most often used to filter applicants, "on benefits" and "has children", are now the two the law most squarely protects.

Right to Rent without race discrimination

Right to Rent checks are a legal duty, but they carry their own discrimination trap. You must check every prospective adult occupier in the same way: you cannot check (or reject) only those who "look" or "sound" foreign, or assume a British passport holder needs no check while a non-white applicant does. The Home Office code of practice exists precisely to stop Right to Rent becoming a vehicle for race discrimination. Apply the identical document check to all applicants, and record that you did.

How to screen lawfully

The safe principle: judge applicants on objective, consistent criteria tied to the tenancy (affordability and reliability), not on who they are.

• Set written criteria in advance and apply them to everyone: for example, income (or income plus guarantor) covering a set multiple of the rent, satisfactory references, and a credit/affordability check.
• Assess each applicant individually. A benefit recipient or a family with children who meets your affordability criteria must be considered on the same basis as anyone else. Offer a guarantor, or rent in advance within the rules, as a solution rather than a closed door.
• Reference consistently. Use the same referencing process for every applicant, and keep the records. A consistent, documented process is your best defence if a rejected applicant alleges discrimination.
• Reject on the criterion, not the characteristic. "The affordability check was not met" is lawful; "we don't take DSS" is not.

What you absolutely can do

None of this stops you from being a careful landlord. You can:

• Run affordability checks and require income to cover the rent (with or without a guarantor).
• Take references from employers and previous landlords.
• Run a credit / tenant reference check through a regulated provider.
• Carry out the mandatory Right to Rent check (applied to everyone equally).

You are choosing on ability to pay and keep the tenancy, which is entirely legitimate. What you cannot do is use a protected characteristic, or a proxy for one such as benefits or children, as the filter.

The risk if you get it wrong

A rejected applicant can bring a discrimination claim in the county court. Damages for discrimination are not capped, can include compensation for injury to feelings, and the reputational cost of a "landlord found to have discriminated" headline is real. Agents carry the same liability, and instructing an agent does not transfer the risk away from you.

How LetCompliance fits

Your defence against a discrimination allegation is a consistent, documented process. In LetCompliance every applicant comes in through the same online application from your shareable advert, the same referencing runs on each one, and the results stay on file against the property. When you screen everyone the same way and can show it, "you rejected me because of X" becomes very hard to sustain, because the file shows you decided on affordability, applied identically to all. The applicant you choose then moves straight on to the tenancy agreement, signed online.

Sources

• legislation.gov.uk: Equality Act 2010
• GOV.UK: Rental discrimination under the Renters' Rights Act 2025 and the Right to Rent code of practice on avoiding discrimination
• EHRC: Preventing "No DSS" discrimination