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FAIR HOUSING CONSULTANT CONNIE MACK-WARD ASKS--What Would YOU Do? Test Your Fair Housing Knowledge in REAL SituationsHere’s the situation . . . . Scenerio 1. Someone Else’s tenant asks for a reasonable accommodation in the building rules because of a disability. Someone Else knows that the tenant is not disabled because he is not getting Social Security Disability or any other income from sources for people with disabilities. Because of that, Someone Else turns the request down. Would you give the accommodation or deny it? Answer 1. If you disagreed with Someone Else’s action, you were right—the Fair Housing Act has its own definition of disability, and that is the only definition that applies in housing situations. (Actually, the term used in the federal Fair Housing Act is “handicap,” a term that has since become generally unacceptable.) Any “physical or mental impairment” that “substantially limits one or more . . . major life activities” qualifies as a disability that entitles tenants of covered multifamily housing to ask for reasonable accommodations that they may need in order to have genuinely full use of their units. And just because you may alter a rule to accommodate a tenant’s reasonable request, such as allowing a guide dog in a no-pets building, doesn’t mean that you have to drop the rule for everyone.
Scenerio 2. A family of five wants to rent Landlord A’s two-bedroom unit. He learned in a fair housing training that court decisions on reasonable occupancy limits have pretty much established that the rule of thumb for reasonable occupancy is two per bedroom. Because of that, Landlord A wants to rent to the family but has to turn them down. Would you turn them down or accept them? Answer 2. If you were going to rent the two-bedroom unit to a family of five, you were right—at least, under current fair housing interpretations of reasonable occupancy. Yes, the current rule of thumb is two to a bedroom—but that is the lower limit, not the upper limit. The intent of the law was to prevent the practice of using unit size unreasonably, as a way to discriminate against families with (minor) children. It wasn’t meant to keep families with children from getting housing!
Scenerio 3. The five-unit building Investor Y recently bought was built in 1995 and meets fair housing accessibility standards established by HUD. Now he has an otherwise completely eligible couple applying, but they want to modify the unit they’re applying for. Because the building is already accessible under the law, Investor Y is going to accept them but tell them that changing the building is not a reasonable modification, even though he realizes that they won’t take the unit. Would you let them do the modifications or would you deny the request? Answer 3. If you questioned Investor Y’s wisdom, you were right—the building may meet one of several disability accessibility standards that may be used under the federal Fair Housing Act and still not provide a physical environment suiting the housing needs of all people with disabilities. A clear example of a necessary and reasonable modification in the physical facility is the request of a tenant with hearing disabilities to install a flashing light to substitute for a doorbell. Is that covered under the accessibility standards? No. Does the tenant need it? Yes. And the tenant, not the property owner, must pay for it.
Scenerio 4. Mrs. X has bought her first investment property and is preparing to rent out the single-family home. Her ad says that there is a “family room.” The local paper, a small weekly, says that her ad violates the Fair Housing Act by referring to a “family,” because the law says that “familial status” may not be mentioned in advertising. They refuse to run her ad. She decides to fight them rather than edit her ad. Would you fight their decision or advertise by some other means such as posters and word of mouth? Answer 4. If you were going to join Mrs. X in her argument with the newspaper, you were right— the advertising provisions in the Fair Housing Act do say that advertisements may not show a “preference” or a “limitation” based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or familial status. “Familial status” means one or more adults living with one or more children under 18. Familial status is protected against discrimination, not “family.” (This was a trick question that wasn’t meant to be very tricky—Mrs. X could obviously have advertised in the paper instead of at the Laundromat by simply changing the expression “family room” to something else. I saw that done in the early days after the passage of the Act, when interpretations were still being established. Somehow, “rumpus room” and “rec room” didn’t work for me—sounds too much like back-to-the-fifties, fake-knotty-pine, finished-basement.)
Scenerio 5. Property Manager B got a lot of applications for his three-bedroom unit, and almost all of them met his written conditions or standards. At the last minute, though, one applicant came in with qualifications so much higher than Manager B’s requirements, and so much better than any other applicants, that the last applicant was the hands-down winner. Property Manager B leased the unit to him. Would you rent to the highest-qualified applicant or to the first applicant who meets your standards? Answer 5. If you thought Property Manager B was exposing himself to danger, you were right—conditions and terms should not only be written, they should be consistently followed. In an actual case, an applicant was turned down because of a weak credit history. Nevertheless, the applicant won in a fair housing lawsuit—his credit was weaker than the person’s who got the unit. However, he was the only applicant whose credit was actually checked. The property manager said that he checked the applicant’s history only because of the applicant’s generally shabby appearance and an old, beat-up car. However, that applicant also happened to be the only black applicant. Did the property manager in that case intend to discriminate? No one will ever know what was in his heart—but he did in fact discriminate, by not applying his standards consistently(every time) and equally(to all alike.) Copyright © Constance Kay Mack-Ward 2006 _______________ If you would like further infomation on this topic, please purchase my book"How to Find That Quality Tenant". Ask your locale bookstore or see my website at:www.findthatqualitytenant.com I am not a lawyer, therefore, if you have any legal concerns with anything in this article, please contact the appropriate legal counsel. Thank You. Don Conrad Copyright 2006 Blue Collar Publishers |
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