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Federal Fair Housing Laws: You Need To Know Them And Comply!

By: Dennis Norman
Submitted: 01:06PM on Thursday 22 October 2009

I would think that anyone that owns rental property today would be aware of of the fact that it is illegal to discriminate when it comes to housing, but at times I wonder. I say that partially as the result of a report that was published late last year by the National Commission on Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity which stated, among other things:

"discrimination continues to be endemic, intertwined into the very fabric of our lives. Ironically, even though more Americans than ever are living in diverse communities, residential segregation remains high......there are at least 4 million fair housing violations in our country every year"

Now, in the past 24 hours, I have had information come across my desk on 3 different discrimination lawsuits, filed by The Department of Justice, HUD and The National Fair Housing Alliance. Giving landlords the benefit of the doubt, I would say with so many violations and the number of suits being filed, there have to be a lot of landlords out there that don't understand what constitutes discrimination in many cases. This is really no excuse, not only is it just wrong to do it, it's also illegal and will get costly for you. Below is a synopsis of the suits just filed (as a reminder, these are newly filed suits so they are allegations at this point and a court has not yet ruled on them):

• The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Tuesday announced that it has charged a Cranston landlord and real-estate company with housing discrimination for refusing to rent to families with children. According to HUD's charge: In March, 2008, an ad was run by a real estate company on Craigslist.com to rent a house owned by a client of the real estate company. The ad stated, "This is an immaculate spacious three-bedroom house for rent..No cats, dogs or children please." Two families with children responded to the advertisement. When they mentioned they had children the agents allegedly refused to show them the property, saying that the owner would not rent to families with children. The owner eventually rented the house to three men without children


• The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the owner and employees of a 72-unit complex in Clanton, Alabama, for violating the Fair Housing Act by discriminating on the basis of race or color in the rental of apartments. The lawsuit, alleges that employees of the apartment owner told white testers that a selling point of the Apartments was the lack of African American tenants and that they had adopted rental policies intended to discourage African American rental applications.
• The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) announced a housing discrimination lawsuit against the nation's largest classified advertisement publisher for publishing house ads that state children are not allowed. NFHA filed the lawsuit after a year-long investigation that uncovered over 60 discriminatory advertisements in 17 of the states where the company does business. Examples of these advertisements, which discriminate against home-seekers with children, include: "3BD 1 BA, house $800. No kids allowed." and "Suitable for 1, possibly 2. $500 monthly. Part-time animal care, $110 off rent. Adults only."

At 02:43AM on November 18, 2009 - Jim Wineinger said...

Or is it really 4 million allegations each year. How many are found true? If true, how many are repeated violations by the same person or company? How many landlords are there in the US including companies. Now compare that adjusted figure to the total landlord figure and you will see that the "epidemic" is about 1% at best which hardly qualifies as an epidemic. Now I also agree that needs to know and abide by these laws and that even one case is too many, but it hardly qualifies as an epidemic of discriminating landlords.

At 08:57PM on November 18, 2009 - Dennis Norman said...

Hey Jim, You have raised many questions in terms of stats I don't have.. One point you make is that the 4 Mil number I referred to are allegations and that is a good point, that does not necessarily mean all have discriminated. Having said that though I can say that I see press releases every week from the Department of Justice regarding convictions and/or settlements with property owners that have violated Fair Housing Laws. In many cases the number of units involved are pretty large numbers so I don't think this is necessarily a small problem. Plus, my question would be, so what is an acceptable percentage of discrimination? I would think 0...I doubt anyone would argue that discrimination in housing is OK if it only affects some "small" percentage of the population... The main point of my article is that I see a lot of "unintended" discrimination out there by property owners. These are not "allegations" but rental ads assembled by groups, DOJ cases, HUD cases, etc...In some cases you have to think the discrimination was intentional but in many cases it really appears to be a case of the owner/property manager either not being up to speed on Fair Housing Laws or just being sloppy. This is why I feel it is important for landlords to educate themselves regarding Fair Housing Laws. Here are just a few quick examples of violations of Fair Housing Laws I see tons of examples of on a regular basis: 1. Ads that somehow indicate the preference is to rent to families with children or families without children (ie: "great family home", "Nice yard for kids", "Great for Singles or Room-mates", etc) 2. I also see many ads that even though it is probably not intentional, they violate fair housing laws by appearing to discriminate on the basis of religion (ie; "In the St Johns parish", "Walking distance to Temple", "just a block from St Mary's Elementary School"... 3. Then there are the actions by landlords/property owners (ie; Single mother with small child asks to see 2nd floor apartment with balcony...the manager/owner suggests that she may wish to consider a first floor unit he has available that will be safer for kids. 4. Property owners/managers that refuse to allow someone with a disability to have a reserved parking space near their unit, or to make alterations to their unit (at the tenants expense) to accomodate them. 5. Owners refusing to rent to someone that admits he is a recovering drug addict or alcoholic. The examples go on and on...It really does appear to be quite a big problem...I think most owners are aware today that you can't discriminate based upon race (although that still happens as well) there are many, many other ways to discriminate that in many cases are much more suttle.

At 02:04AM on November 20, 2009 - Jim Wineinger said...

My point was that discrimination allegations are often used by people to get their way and or a lump sum of money from someone. They are reported as actual discrimination and included in those kids of figures when they are only preferences and not actual discrimination. It is similar to the "thought police" who say that you thought it and therefore are guilty of it even though we cant prove it.

At 02:10AM on November 20, 2009 - Jim Wineinger said...

The main point was well said about knowing the laws and I do agree totally. Just pointing out the often unsaid side for those who would not discriminate and are still accused of it. Communication is the key.

At 06:27AM on November 20, 2009 - Dennis Norman said...

Jim, I defnitely agree that there are many instances the allegations are falso and made by someone to retaliate against a legal action a landlord may have action (such as demanding the tenant pay rent, or turning down an applicant that does not meet normal requirements).. Personally I think someone that makes a false allegation knowingly is just as bad as a person that discriminates....neither action should be tolerated...