The short version
- Screen on ability to pay, intended use of the unit, and tenancy history. Nothing else.
- The Code protects race, ancestry, place of origin, citizenship, creed, sex, family and marital status, disability, age, receipt of public assistance, gender identity and sexual orientation.
- Receipt of public assistance is protected. You can ask whether income covers the rent. You cannot ask where the income comes from and reject it for being assistance.
- Ask everyone the same questions in the same order. Consistency is the defence.
- The script below takes one message and removes most of the noise.
01The line, in one sentence
You are allowed to ask whether someone can pay the rent and how they have behaved as a tenant. You are not allowed to ask about who they are.
That distinction is the Ontario Human Rights Code, and it applies from the very first message, before anyone has viewed anything. It is not a rule about leases. It is a rule about the conversation.
It is also not a rule against screening. Landlords sometimes hear the Code and conclude they cannot ask anything, then end up choosing on gut feel, which is exactly the decision process the Code is worried about.
02The script
This is the version most operators settle on after a few months of real inquiry volume. It works on WhatsApp, Messenger, Kijiji and SMS, it fits in one message, and it answers most of what you need before anyone spends an evening at a showing.
- What is your target move-in date?
- How many people will be living in the unit?
- Is your household income at least three times the monthly rent?
- Can you provide recent proof of income?
- Do you have references from your two most recent landlords?
- Are you comfortable with a credit and reference check?
- Do you have any pets, and if so what kind?
- Have you seen the full listing, and do you have questions about the unit?
03The five to never ask
None of these predict whether rent arrives on the first. All of them appear regularly in human rights complaints. The cost of asking is high and the information is worthless, which is an unusually easy trade to make.
- Where are you from originally?
- Are you married, and do you have children?
- Do you observe any religious practices in the unit?
- Is your income from a job or from assistance?
- How old are you?
04Scoring without overthinking it
Three tiers is enough for almost every landlord.
- 1
Green
Answered everything, meets the income threshold, has verifiable references, and the move-in date matches. Invite to a showing immediately, today if you can.
- 2
Yellow
Answered most of it, with one thing missing or borderline. Ask one or two follow-up questions before deciding. Do not let these sit; yellow leads go cold faster than green ones.
- 3
Red
Refused to answer, well below the threshold, or the timeline does not work. Decline politely and briefly: you are moving forward with other applicants. No explanation is required and volunteering one rarely helps.
05The hard part is doing it the same way every time
The questions are not difficult. Asking them consistently when leads are arriving on five platforms at all hours is, and inconsistency is where both bad tenants and human rights problems come from.
TenantBay pulls WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, SMS, email and phone into one inbox, and the AI answers with the same screening script every time, day or night. When a lead scores green it converts straight into a tenant record with the screening history attached, so the lease and rent setup inherit everything you already collected. No retyping, and no lead going cold because you were at work.
Questions landlords actually ask
Can I ask a rental applicant about their income in Ontario?
Yes. You can ask whether income covers the rent and ask for proof of it. What you cannot do is treat the source of that income as a reason to decline, because receipt of public assistance is a protected ground.
Can I refuse an applicant with pets?
You may take pets into account when selecting an applicant, but once a tenancy exists a no-pets clause is void and you cannot collect a pet deposit. Refusals based on a service animal engage disability protections under the Code.
Is the 30% income rule allowed in Ontario?
Income information can be considered as part of the whole picture alongside credit references and rental history, but rent-to-income ratios cannot be used on their own to screen applicants out. Treat the ratio as one signal, not a gate.
How fast do I need to reply to a rental lead?
On Facebook Marketplace, minutes. On Kijiji, a few hours. Speed is the variable most landlords control least and it costs more vacancy than pricing does.
Sources
Run every rental from one place.
Every lead from phone, text, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram in one inbox. Leases signed online, rent tracked to the day, repairs handled, and a year-end organised on the CRA T776. List your rentals free, manage up to 4 units free, then a price set by the size of your portfolio.
Keep reading
Ontario · 6 min read
Verifying a rental applicant: what to check, and what people fake
Prescreening tells you who to take seriously. Verification tells you whether what they said is true. Here is the order to do it in, and the three documents that get forged most often.
Ontario · 6 min read
Marketplace, Kijiji and WhatsApp: where Ontario rental leads actually come from
Three channels, three completely different lead shapes, three different response speeds. Running all three is normal. Running all three from three separate inboxes is what costs you the extra weeks of vacancy.
Ontario · 7 min read
Ontario landlord and tenant law: what landlords are actually entitled to
Ontario has a reputation as a tenant's province, and it is mostly earned. But landlords have real, enforceable rights here. Almost all of them are conditional on process, which is why they get lost.