Being a landlord is an incredibly rewarding career choice, especially if you like working with people. Everyone needs a place to live and part of your job is to offer them the best home possible in any way that you can. If you want to make a positive, meaningful difference in a person’s life, this is certainly a great way to do it.

But at the same time, being a landlord is also difficult – particularly when it comes to the intersection of your responsibilities and the law. Obviously, you have local and state laws to adhere to in terms of how you run your property and what services you have to provide. But there are federal rules governing what you can and cannot do too – and the Fair Housing Act is maybe the most important one of all.

What is the Fair Housing Act?

To get an understanding of the Fair Housing Act, you first need to learn more about an earlier piece of legislation – the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

The Civil Rights Act was considered a landmark law in the United States, and it was originally passed by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. It describes certain penalties that from that moment on would be associated with certain acts of violence, intimidation, or discrimination against protected groups in the country.

Title 7 through Title 9 of the Civil Rights Act is what is officially known as the Fair Housing Act. Note that this should not be confused with the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, although they are similar in certain ways.

With regard to the Fair Housing Act, you’re talking about a bill that prohibited discrimination in terms of housing in particular. Believe it or not, there were no federal enforcement provisions concerning this topic up to this point. The Fair Housing Act specifically prohibited discrimination in terms of selling, renting, or even financing a house or piece of property based on things like race, religion, or national origin.

A few years later in 1974, this list of factors was expanded to include sex. Then, in 1988, it was expanded further to also prevent housing-related discrimination against people with disabilities.

The Fair Housing Act is also notable because threatening, injuring, intimidating, or generally interfering with anyone due to their race, color, religion, national origin, disability, or family status with regards to housing officially became a federal crime from that point on.

Why the Fair Housing Act Matters to Landlords: Breaking Things Down

With regard to the relationship between landlords and the Fair Housing Act, maybe the most important thing for them to understand is what the act does and does not prohibit. Case in point: marketing-related discrimination.

Everyone fully acknowledges that it is a clear cut case of discrimination to refuse to rent an apartment to someone of a particular race or sex, for example. But the Fair Housing Act also goes as far as to say that you cannot discriminate through the terms of your lease agreement (meaning you’re not officially saying certain types of people are allowed, but your lease makes it impossible for them to rent) or through advertising (by gearing your marketing materials specifically away from people in one or more of the protected classes).

Unfortunately, this is all a bit tricky because the Fair Housing Act doesn’t actually provide any type of list of words that you’re not supposed to use in your marketing materials – meaning that it would, in theory, be possible to violate these rules even if you had absolutely no intention of doing so. Experts agree that to be on the safe side, you should always avoid exclusionary words like “no” or “only.” The only exception to this is when you’re talking about something that the law absolutely doesn’t allow like drugs, or that you personally don’t allow like pets.

Diving deeper, it’s also important to note that your marketing can potentially pose a problem in other ways, too – particularly in terms of the protected classes that are covered under the Fair Housing Act. Consider the following examples:

  • The Fair Housing Act specifically states that you’re not allowed to use language that describes the property in question, the neighborhood, or the neighbors in any type of racially-driven way. So you’re absolutely not allowed to say that the apartment you’re trying to rent is in an Italian neighborhood, for example. This is true even if you’re attempting to point this out for positive reasons.
  • Again, you’re also not supposed to use any type of language that discriminates against a particular sex. So while it’s perfectly okay to say that your one-bedroom apartment just off a college campus is the perfect “bachelor pad,” you’re not allowed to say that the apartment is for “men only.”
  • Religion is okay to talk about in your marketing collateral, so long as you’re not doing so in any type of exclusionary way. You’re not allowed to say that you prefer one religion over another, or that you’re specifically not renting to people of a certain religion. You can, however, talk about all of the religious hot spots in the immediate area if they are legitimate points of interest.
  • Familial status restrictions are pretty cut-and-dry. It’s totally acceptable to say that the property you’re trying to rent has a nursery – implying that it would be good for young families. But you’re not allowed to refuse to rent to someone just because he or she is single.
  • The above point is very similar to how you have to think about not accidentally discriminating against people with disabilities. If your apartment is on the fifth floor and there is no elevator, you can absolutely make a note of that in any ads that you run. But even suggesting “this is not a good apartment for people in wheelchairs” is off the table. That’s for the disabled people in question to decide.

Additional Considerations About Fair Housing

Note that the Fair Housing Act is always something that you should be thinking about as a landlord – and that begins from the very moment that you start meeting with potential renters in the first place.

As a rule of thumb, you should always avoid asking questions of prospective tenants that weed into any of the protected classes outlined above. Even if you’re legitimately curious and have no bad intentions whatsoever, it’s an easy way to unintentionally discriminate against someone if you choose not to rent to them later. If you had a ten-minute discussion with someone about their particular religion and then choose not to rent to them, they could easily come back and say that you rejected their application on those grounds.

Would it be true? Not necessarily – but it’s still a situation that you’re going to want to avoid for the best results moving forward.

Overall, the Fair Housing Act is absolutely a good thing and it’s not something any landlord has to “worry about” so long as they deploy the most important real estate best practice of all: treat all applicants and tenants fairly, respectfully, equally and consistently at all times.

Any qualifications you require of your applicants should be based on legitimate business reasons. It’s perfectly acceptable to set a minimum income requirement, for example. What isn’t okay is when you start to set different requirements for different types of people. If the rent is due for certain types of people on one date and other people on a different one, or if only certain types of tenants are allowed to pay by check, these are situations where you’re going to run into issues sooner rather than later.

After you approve someone and they move into the property, continue to stick to what is written in the lease. This is a large part of the reason why it’s so important to have written policies for every conceivable situation in the first place – you don’t want to wade into that gray area where someone might be able to say that you’ve discriminated against them, even unintentionally.

Finally, make sure you keep thorough records to the best of your ability about anything and everything, no matter what. When you meet with a new applicant, keep records. When you decide to reject someone’s application, keep records. If you ever run into a problem with a tenant where an argument ensues or if you decide to start the eviction process, keep EXCELLENT records.

Not only does this make good business sense, but it’s also a great way to protect yourself in the event that the person in question does eventually decide to file a discrimination charge.

Beyond that, always fall back on the golden rule: treat others as you yourself would like to be treated. In your professional capacity as a landlord, in your personal life and at every moment in between – if you follow that simple advice, you truly cannot go wrong.

Contact our property management company today if you have any questions or would like additional information.