A handful of helpful reminders today in response to questions sent in by blog readers:

1. If you are going to draft community rules and policies (indeed, a best practice in my view) please remember not to single out members of a protected class. For example, if you want to prohibit running and/or playing in your

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With the calendar firmly in December, I have now received multiple requests from Fair Housing Defense blog readers (thank you for checking in) for my annual apartment community holiday decoration guide. How do we respect the Christmas celebrations of some, Hanukkah beliefs of others, as well as festive traditions of various other cultures? Can we…

In a press release issued last week, the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) revealed it settled a racial discrimination Fair Housing Act (FHA) claim for $80,000 pursuant to the terms of a voluntary compliance agreement directed toward an apartment community in Georgia. The $80,000 is being divided up between three lead complainants…

Over the past couple of weeks, two Fair Housing Defense blog readers asked similar questions about the processing of administrative fair housing complaints. I thought it best to answer the questions together.

Administrative housing discrimination cases can be filed with the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) or with various state, city, or…

Continuing on a theme of late, last week the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) charged a New York property owner with violating the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) when he refused to rent an available apartment home to a father with a teenager.

Factually, the property is a mixed-use building with an…

A couple of weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) charged a couple from Georgia with familial status discrimination pursuant to the Fair Housing Act (FHA). HUD asserts that the couple, who own an apartment building, refused to rent to and made discriminatory statements about families with children.

The case started…

At the end of last week, the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) issued a press release announcing that it charged the owner and manager of a condominium community in Colorado with discriminating against families with children under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). In the charge, HUD asserts that the owner and manager…

So, what’s the first thing you should do if your professional apartment management company (or ownership entity or leasing office employee) receives a notice from the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) or a similar state, city, or county agency informing them that a housing discrimination case has been filed? Of course, the…