CityVision Services, Inc. has recently filed a number of complaints with HUD under the Fair Housing Act. Those I am familiar with all follow the same pattern. Someone from CityVision calls an apartment complex asking about pet deposit policies and then mentions a therapy animal. The manager or leasing agent makes the mistake of saying all animals require a pet deposit. No one ever comes to the complex or makes a rental application, but CityVision files a Fair Housing complaint on its own behalf as a “tester.” The apartment owners I’ve spoken with were all located in East Texas, but the extent of this particular effort by CityVision Services is impossible to tell because HUD complaints are not public. More
FHA
Big time problems with FHA compliance: how do things go so wrong?
By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA FHA General, ADA FHA Litigation General, Apartments, Building Codes, FHA, Multi-Family Tags: Consent Decree, Construction, Department of Justice, DOJ, FHA
The Department of Justice announced in late July a settlement with a substantial multi-family developer in West Virginia that had managed over a decade or so to construct 23 apartment complexes that did not comply with the accessibility requirements of the Fair Housing Act (see the DOJ press release here). In addition to remediation costs, which appear to be substantial, the developer will pay $205,000 in damages and penalties and construct new accessible units. Like most FHA cases, it is a big deal.
One of my fellow bloggers has helpfully suggested that if the DOJ investigates a situation like this you need a lawyer “like me.” What developers “like you” really need is not to be investigated in the first place, and if investigated to not be liable. You can find a link to the consent decree in the DOJ press release, and the problems it lists are the same problems that appear over and over again in FHA lawsuits. Lawyers didn’t cause them, and lawyers really can’t prevent them. Developers, however, can. More
Special treatment in the name of equality – understanding the ADA and FHA reasonable accommodation provisions
By Richard Hunt in ADA, ADA FHA General, ADA Policies, Building Codes, FHA Tags: ADA, affirmative action, disability, Discrimination, FHA, reasonable accommodation
One of the hardest things for ordinary people to understand about the ADA and FHA is that these statutes, which supposedly forbid discrimination, make it unlawful to treat everyone equally. To avoid “discrimination” under the disability related provisions of these laws businesses must give special treatment to those with disabilities. More
Disparate Impact – Will it now apply to disability discrimination under the FHA?
By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA FHA General, Apartments, Condominiums, FHA, Landlord-tenant, Multi-Family, Policies and Procedures FHA ADA Tags: Apartments, Condominiums, disparate impact, FHA Litigation, FHA Policies, private lawsuits
On June 25 the Supreme Court held that FHA discrimination claims can be based on disparate impact. Texas Dep’t of Hous. & Cmty. Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., 2015 WL 2473449, at *9 (U.S. June 25, 2015). At first blush this doesn’t seem to have much to do with accessibility claims. When we talk about the policies that discriminate against those with disabilities we usually look at 42 U.S.C. Section 3604(f)(3)(B), which requires reasonable accommodation; that is, exceptions to a policy because the policy has a disproportionate impact on those with disabilities. However, Inclusive Communities Project may have its own disparate impact on claims of disability discrimination. More
Risky business – the FHA forbids discrimination based on perceived risk.
By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, FHA, FHA Insurance, Landlord-tenant Tags: FHA Litigation, FHA Policies
You can’t turn down or evict a handicapped* tenant because renting to him would increase your risk of liability. That is one of the important lessons from the Second Circuit’s June 2 decision in Rodriguez v. Vill. Green Realty, Inc., 2015 WL 3461554, at *15 (2d Cir. June 2, 2015). If a tenant or prospective tenant is willing to accept some risk caused by his or her handicap the landlord doesn’t get to decide he shouldn’t. More