Most of what is written about tenant screening is written from the landlord’s perspective: what the screen produces, how to read it, what to make of the components. The screen has another side, and the screen is better understood when both sides are described. This page describes the screen as the tenant experiences it. The purpose is not advocacy; the purpose is completeness.
A prospective tenant is asked to consent to a screen at the point where the landlord has shortlisted them and is considering offering the tenancy. The request is made by the landlord or by the landlord’s agent. The tenant is told what the screen involves and is asked to consent to each component. The consent is per-component; the tenant can consent to some components and decline others.
Consent is not blanket. The tenant who agrees to a credit check has not thereby agreed to an Ejari history check or to contact with prior landlords. Each component is a separate consent. The tenant retains the right to decline any component, with the understanding that a declined component appears as declined on the file the landlord receives.
The tenant is asked for the standard documents: Emirates ID, passport, residence visa, employment certificate or trade licence, bank statements where relevant, contact details for the current and prior landlords where the tenant elects to provide them. The documents are submitted through the channel the screening party operates: a secure portal, an encrypted email channel, a physical handover in some traditional arrangements.
The documents are used for the purposes of the screen. They are held by the screening party for the period the screening party’s retention policy specifies. The tenant is entitled to be told what that period is.
Where the screen includes the Etihad Credit Bureau credit component, the request reaches the tenant through the bureau’s Tenant Screening service, which has been operational since April 2026. The tenant receives a notification inside the UAE PASS application. The request identifies the landlord, identifies what is being requested, and asks the tenant to approve or decline. The tenant approves with their own action, on their own device. The score is returned to the landlord. The transaction is logged inside UAE PASS and the tenant can review the log. A declined request returns no score; the landlord cannot access the score through this channel without the tenant’s approval.
The tenant’s employer is contacted by the screening party. The contact is made on the express basis that the tenant has consented; the employer is told that the call is in connection with a tenancy application that the employee has authorised. The call is brief and is bounded to the three matters that bear on the tenancy decision: existence of the employment, current role, and current salary.
The tenant is entitled to be told that the call has been made. In well-conducted screens, the tenant is informed at the point of consent that employment verification involves a call to the employer’s human resources or finance function.
Where the tenant has supplied contact details for prior landlords, those landlords are contacted. The contact identifies the screening party, identifies the screen, states that the tenant has consented, and asks the structured questions described elsewhere on this site. The prior landlord may respond, may decline to respond, or may not respond at all.
The tenant is entitled to know whether the reference was completed, in summary form. The screening party is not obliged to disclose the verbatim content of a prior landlord’s response, but the tenant should know whether the reference returned positively, neutrally, negatively, or not at all.
Many screens permit the tenant to provide a short written statement that goes onto the file in the tenant’s own words. The statement is the tenant’s voice. It is not edited by the screening party. Where the tenant wishes to provide context — about a cheque return, about a tenancy that ended early, about anything in the file that they wish to address — the statement is the place. Where the tenant wishes to say nothing, no statement is required.
The tenant has rights under UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 in relation to personal data processed about them. The tenant has the right to be informed about the processing, to consent on a per-component basis, to access the data held about them, to request correction of inaccurate data, and to have data deleted at the end of the retention period. The screening party is obliged to honour these rights.
The tenant has the right to dispute the content of the screen where it contains inaccuracies. The dispute is raised with the screening party and, where the dispute concerns data held by the Etihad Credit Bureau, may also be raised with the bureau directly through its own dispute mechanism.
The tenant has the right to know what is held about them, how long it will be held, and who has access to it. A well-constructed screen makes these things plain at the point of consent rather than burying them in documentation the tenant is unlikely to read.
Where the landlord proceeds with the tenancy, the screen has done its work and the file is held for the period the retention policy specifies. Where the landlord declines, the tenant is entitled to be told that the landlord has declined, though the landlord is not obliged to disclose the reasons in detail. The tenant whose tenancy proceeds and whose tenancy concludes well has, in conducting themselves well, contributed to the reference that may be provided on the next screen of their tenancy.
Related pages: UAE PASS consent, the legal basis, prior landlord references.