Section 8 discrimination laws in King County, WA

[Tamar Mar]

We are getting ready to rent out our first home in the Seattle area, and we just learned that there is an anti-discrimination law in King County regarding Section 8.  I have been telling people that we are not accepting Section 8 (oops!?).  The article my husband read indicated that landlords cannot disqualify on the basis of Section 8 alone.  Rather, there has to be other disqualifying factors in addition to, say, the 3x rent monthly income.  We have a specific set of criteria spelled out for renters.  Just wondering how others have gotten around this legally if you have not wanted to accept the vouchers. 

Thank you!

[Bradley Bogdan]

@Tamar Mar If you have no interest in participating in the program, there are legal ways to reduce/eliminate the likelihood that you'll have an applicant that qualifies with a voucher. 

1. Raise your rent above the FMR value for your area: This will eliminate any chance your rental will have a Section 8 applicant.

2. Impose stringent credit or/and past rental reference requirements: This will eliminate much of the Section 8 pool, but not all. Frankly, if someone has these requirements but has a voucher, you should strongly consider renting to them anyway. 

3. Charge a high (legal) security deposit: Much of the low income community can't afford high deposits. A high deposit will allow you greater security in terms of protecting yourself, as well as screening out a large portion of the Section 8 pool. 

The downsides to avoiding Section 8 in an area where you can't legally discriminate against it are you're shrinking your pool of possible non-Section 8 renters as well. Remember, the program exists to ensure folks with low income can afford rent. That doesn't mean that those folks are bad renters (or people), or that the local Housing Authority is poor to work with. If you screen well for legal factors (no evictions, good references, good credit, etc.) you should run about the same chance of finding a good tenant in the program as you would one that isn't. Hopefully someone local to you can comment on your local Housing Authority's ease (or not) to work with.