Criminal History: Felony

Renting when you have a criminal history is complicated and can be very difficult.  If you have been charged with a crime, whether you were convicted or not, if can and will be found during a criminal background check and can make it difficult to rent.  Two types of criminal records make it difficult to rent: misdemeanors and felonies.

For misdemeanors, the major components that the landlord will look for is the age of the offense, the degree of the offense and whether the offense was aggressive or non-aggressive.  Regardless of the degree of your misdemeanor, typically if you are within 5 years of your offense, landlords will address these on a case by case basis.  Typically apartment managers will not accept applicants whose criminal record contains crimes of person or property.  For example DUI & public intoxication is accepted more often then an aggressive assault, drug charges, or theft which is sometimes considered a crime of property.

For those whose criminal record contains a felony, your Austin rental options are very limited.  Due to Fair Housing regulations apartments don’t want to open themselves up to the possibility of having to accept higher degree felonies if they accept lower degree felonies, so they tend not to accept felonies of any kind.

If you have a criminal record you will need extra help to find rentals that will work with your situation.  An apartment finder may be able to help.