Most people are aware of fair housing laws. These laws make it illegal for a landlord to discriminate on the basis of race, age, sex, familial status, national origin, color and religion. State and local laws can often add disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, income source and other items to that list. Every landlord I know tries their best not to run afoul of these laws. They know that it is both wrong to discriminate in such a manner and that it could land them in a deep and expensive pot of hot water.
But, even if you are aware that these laws exist and have no intention of acting in a discriminatory manner, it can still be easy to trip up. How? By asking questions that they think are perfectly innocuous but can be taken as discriminatory.
As landlords, one of the most vital things we do is screen potential tenants. To screen tenants properly, we need to get certain pieces of information. How we ask for that information however is what gets us into potential hot water.
Here are four questions that landlords often ask which can be taken as discriminatory.
- How old are you? – As landlords we want to make sure potential tenants are old enough to sign a legal contract and we want to run credit and criminal checks on everyone over 18 years of age. How can you find that out without asking their age? Well, you do not really need to know their age, just if they are legal adults so ask this question instead. Are you a legal adult?
- Do you have any children? – A seemingly innocent question that can get a landlord into deep dodo. Remember that familial status is a protected class and if you ask about children you run the risk of running afoul of the law. Instead you should ask this question. How many people will be living with you? You can then take this a bit further and ask how many will be legal adults.
- What size apartment are you looking for? – How could you get in trouble for asking this? After all you were just trying to be helpful. But, by asking about size someone might think you are trying to dissuade people with large families. Thus putting you on the wrong side of the familial status protected category. Instead ask what a potential tenant’s price range is then let them know what you have available in that range, no matter the size. In that way you let the potential tenant make the decision.
- Do you have a job? More and more communities are banning discrimination based on the type of income someone receives. To avoid problems ask this question instead. How much is your monthly income? After all, what we really want to know is if a potential tenant can pay the rent. Who cares where the income comes from as long as it can be verified.
When screening potential tenants do you best to keep your questions general. Base your questions on items that matter such as verifiable income, and age of consent. By keeping things general, especially at the first points of contact, you can hopefully avoid tripping over some of those housing discrimination laws.
