Last week, I was featured on the Capital Thinking radio show talking about the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and how the law impacts most Americans from time to time. I did a 15 minute segment with the host and we covered a number of topics.
Here is the link to my interview if you are curious.
Just A Thought.
On Thursday, June 16 at 12:30 p.m. eastern time, your Fair Housing Defense editor will be a guest on the Capital Thinking program on the VoiceAmerica Business Network. Our segment will focus on issues of interest to those in the fair housing arena, including topics related to the history of the Fair Housing Act (FHA), the specific protected classes as well as some thoughts on dealing with residents and avoiding housing discrimination complaints.
Log on to listen: www.voiceamerica.com
Just a Thought.
In writing these blog entries, your humble editor tries to avoid legal jargon and responses that don't give clear answers. Unfortunately, this post will be one that breaks my general rules. I was asked recently, can management simply non-renew a resident?
First, the rules with respect to non-renewals are different for conventional and affordable communities. At a conventional community, management has the right to non-renew a resident -- provided the non-renewal is not based on discrimination. For example, a property would violate the law if it issued non-renewal notices to all (or any) of its Jewish residents because of their religion. Before non-renewing any resident, however, I always advise management to have documented the file to ensure we can demonstrate the reason behind the non-renewal decision. We may never be asked to do so, but it is the better practice to be prepared just in case a question is raised.
At affordable properties, the rules are a little different. To be clear, if a resident causes a direct threat to the community, its residents, or our management team, the leasing office staff will attempt to terminate a lease. Also, if a resident fails to complete the annual recertification paperwork, it is likely that the government assistance will be terminated (which will result in the rent rising to the regular, market rate which most likely the resident cannot afford to pay). However, in practice -- provided a resident at an affordable community follows the House Rules and ensures his or her recertification paperwork is timely done, it is not practicable to even attempt to non-renew.
Also, management at any property cannot non-renew a resident because he or she filed a previous fair housing complaint. Such an action would be retaliation -- which is also against the law.
Finally, if you non-renew a resident -- be prepared for what may happen next. While many times the resident will voluntarily leave, I have seen some residents who simply hold over and require management to go to court.
Just a thought.
Two different cases in two parts of the country provide a good reminder for all of us in the professional apartment ownership and management arena. I am dealing with a HUD fair housing investigation at a conventional property in the south and a HUD compliance review at an affordable community in the northeast.
What links the inquiries is that management is being probed to prove what we did and how we documented our actions. While interviews from current and former employees are very helpful, HUD always wants to review resident files and they always look for notes detailing interaction between management and residents.
Even if your interaction with residents is benign, please make sure to note it in a log or in a resident's file. Particularly if you issue a notice or even a warning letter, ensure it is dated and included in the file. While certain issues may not look at the outset like they will rise to the level of a housing discrimination complaint or HUD compliance review (and to be sure, most certainly do not) -- if and when such an issue arises, management will be best served by detailed records and notes so we can demonstrate what was done and why it was done.
To illustrate, in one of my cases we are being asked why there was only one warning letter in a file before a non-renewal notice was issued. Notwithstanding that there was a series of incidents between the leasing office staff and the resident. For whatever reason, the file did not indicate to HUD's complete satisfaction the level of distress caused by the resident. I think the case could have been closed with more detail in the file. For now, it continues on until I develop additional evidence to demonstrate why the notice of non-renewal was appropriate.
Just a thought.
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