Fair housing laws encourage impartiality, prevent discrimination in housing, and aim to guarantee that each person has an opportunity to a safe and secure home. Nonetheless, understanding and obeying these laws can sometimes prove tough for rental property managers and owners. While the intent behind fair housing rules is easy, implementing them can be a bit more difficult.
Understanding fair housing laws and how they apply to you is critical to keeping your rental properties compliant. Stick around to familiarize yourself with the fundamentals of fair housing laws, common compliance matters, and advisable approaches for rental property owners and managers.
Understanding Fair Housing Laws
The first step to understanding fair housing laws is comprehending that, based on where your rental property is located, a number of laws at the federal, state, and local levels may apply.
The first regulation most people picture regarding fair housing is the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968. This guideline prohibits discrimination in housing based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, and familial status at a national level. The decree is related to housing sales, rentals, and financing, striving to guarantee equal access in all housing-related transactions.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reinforces this law, which studies criticisms and works to uphold fair housing standards across the U.S. In addition to the Fair Housing Act, other federal housing laws maintain and emphasize the values of fair housing. Together, these ideologies work toward a more equitable housing landscape around the nation.
Besides federal regulations, several state and local laws deliver additional protections for renters, handling matters like eviction rights, security deposit limits, and discrimination based on income source, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Some towns have rent limits or stabilization laws to prevent excessive rent increases, securing housing affordability in high-demand areas. Local tenant rights may also involve protections against eviction during dangerous scenarios, access to habitability standards, and requirements for clear interaction between landlords and tenants. You can acquire more data about housing laws in your state online.
Common Compliance Challenges for Property Owners
Learning the laws is an important first step, but it is equally vital to know common scenarios that may result in housing law violations and how to avoid them. For illustration, some common challenges rental property owners and landlords face in abiding by fair housing laws often arise from implicit bias or reliance on outdated procedures.
For example, tenant screening can be hard for some property managers and owners because federal law does not permit you to reject rent to someone due to their incapacity status, age, or family status. As a result, deciding beforehand that you will only rent to adults without children, for instance, or that you won’t rent to individuals in their 20s, would both be examples of housing discrimination.
A comparable problem can occur when marketing the property, where property owners and managers may want to publicize for a certain type of tenant. These tactics also usually run afoul of state and federal housing laws. By understanding these disputes and adjusting your screening and marketing methods, you can better ensure fair and equitable treatment of all prospective residents.
Best Practices for Ensuring Compliance
There are necessary steps to ensure that your property management strategies abide by fair housing laws, such as producing and obeying a standardized application process and generating criteria for tenant evaluations, which is the perfect means to avoid unintentional discrimination. Other best practices to ensure compliance include:
- Use inclusive language in rental advertisements to evade discriminating statements or inclinations.
- Be consistent with giving the same data, following the same procedures, and executing the same follow-up actions for each applicant.
- Guarantee that your lease terms, guidelines, and strategies are equally fair to all tenants.
- Stay knowledgeable about reasonable accommodations for tenants with disabilities and respond to such requests promptly and appropriately.
- Keep detailed records of all applications, relations, and decisions, documenting your ins and outs for approvals and denials in case of future disputes or inquiries.
- Speak with an attorney or legal expert when generating rules or handling difficult situations.
Creating and following a written non-discrimination policy that shows your dedication to Fair Housing compliance is beneficial to uphold consistency.
Property Management Companies in Fair Housing Compliance
Experienced property managers should understand all applicable local, state, and federal regulations. In addition, as trained professionals, they have protocols to guarantee that your tenant relationships, evaluation, documentation, and other functions comply with these regulations. This can give you peacefulness and help reduce the risk of discrimination claims altogether.
Building a Fair Housing Culture
With so much in danger in an investment property, it’s crucial to know laws governing rental properties, housing, and connected matters to avoid legal drawbacks more easily. Property owners can help guarantee equitable treatment for all tenants by being aware of and adhering to fair housing laws.
Partnering with an experienced property management company like Real Property Management DePenn provides the expertise to manage the intricacies of fair housing guidelines in Yonkers and neighboring areas. Contact us today or call 866-820-9913 for more details on ensuring housing law compliance and other quality management services.
We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity throughout the Nation. See Equal Housing Opportunity Statement for more information.
