Pregnant Applicant - Does she meet the income requirement?

Question

A recent pregnant women applied to rent a townhome of mine for a year lease. She meets the income requirement of 3x the monthly rent, however when she goes on maternity leave, I am not sure that she will. Can I legally ask her how much of her maternity leave will she be paid by her employer? Any advice will help!

Zach Davis · Answer

If she meets ALL of your pre-determined screening criteria then it would be illegal to rent to her because of her pregnancy. If she doesn't meet ALL of your criteria then you shouldn't be renting to her anyway. There is no room for grey area when screening tenants, either they meet the criteria or not. Bending the rules is how you get sued for retaliation or discrimination. Landlord tenant law has its own version of ambulance chasers that would love nothing more than to make a few bucks off of a landlord that tried to read further into a tenants life than just criminal history, verifiable income, credit score, and rental history.

Logically, we would all like to be able to make decisions based on personality differences, family size, possible income drops, or whatever gut feeling we have. My lawyer likes to say laws replaced logic and now legal precedent is replacing actual laws. You can deny her for any reason you want but if she finds one of the aforementioned "ambulance chasers" you had better have a legal reason to point to or you may end up renting from her.

Jacqueline Carrington · Answer

You cannot assume that someone will not be able to pay their rent because they'll be on maternity leave. You don't know what types of savings she may have to cover her leave or if she'll get short term disability which pays a percentage of her income during her leave.

If she is currently working and meets your income and other qualifications for renting, then you must approve her application.

If she does not CURRENTLY meet your application qualifications, then you can deny.

Kyle J. · Answer

Pregnancy is covered under Fair Housing laws (familial status), so not renting to her (or treating her differently) because of her pregnancy would definitely be prohibited.

Zach Davis · Answer

@Garrett Brunell

Come to Portland some day. I buy low end properties and turn them into middle income/working class  rentals. Its amazing how fast unemployed, penniless people can find a lawyer when you evict them.

Chris Martin · Answer

@Garrett BrunellI think you got the answer above. An exercise for you is to change this phrase "...knowing that my real concern is their inability to pay the rent due to maternity leave" and substitute "maternity leave" with "being X" where X is another protected class based on race, gender, ethnicity, etc. It doesn't read so well, does it?

I agree with your first paragraph. You should have just stopped there.

Elizabeth Colegrove · Answer

As everyone said that is fair house.

In regards to your worriers. In my demographic I have not had to worry about that as I rent out to people with skin in the game. Therefore my renters are professionals who want to maintain their good standing in credit, etc.

Michael Boyer · Answer

Agree with Kyle above, so you need to throw out gender, pregnancy, familial status, etc (just don't even consider it, mention it, or factor it into your screening in any way) then go back to your criteria and see if you have a qualified applicant. Best of luck

Garrett Brunell · Answer

@Zach Davis that's a good point about getting sued over bending the leasing criteria based on reading into the applicants life. I hadn't approached it from that perspective before nor have I read about any situation where that is an issue, but I can believe it! Thanks!

This is good stuff everyone!

Garrett Brunell · Answer

@Dawn Anastasi thanks for your feedback. I've heard of that situation with employers. That is an unfortunate reality that company's face when they know that maternity leave is imminent. Definitely not agreeing with company's who do that.

@Jacqueline Carrington you are right about not assuming they will not be able to pay rent. That is something that my wife and I discussed. This particular applicant does very well for herself and income verification shows there's no reason for concern. Thanks!

Dawn Anastasi · Answer

It's not legal, but some employers may not hire a woman who is pregnant because they don't want to give her maternity leave or know that they're going to have to have someone fill in for her because she will be away.

Pregnant Applicant - Does she meet the income requirement?

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