Dennis Norman
Fair Housing Laws are just one thing landlords need to be very familiar with in order to protect themselves and their businesses. In addition, there is the Americans with Disabilities Act, application screening, lead-based paint and other disclosures,leases, state laws about security deposits,collection issues, criminal activity in your units and more…What’s a Landlord to Do?
Being a landlord was probably relatively simple at one point in history, but not now. Over the years though it has become increasingly more challenging as the federal government has passed and enhanced laws to assure that everyone gets equal treatment with regard to housing, federal and state laws have been passed requiring disclosure of dangerous and/or potentially dangerous conditions that may exist in rentals, municipalities and cities in many cases have dozens of ordinances on their books with regard to rental property including in some cases inspections, occupancy permits, registration of property, etc and then there are all the landlord/tenant issues such as applications, leases, lease terminations, evictions, collections etc. Oh yeah, and all along the way there is a government agency or a team of attorneys ready to point out your mistakes along the way.
Before I go further, I’m not saying I’m OPPOSED to all these things, quite to the contrary, particularly when it comes to Fair Housing and ADA. Granted, I could spend a day or two writing about ordinances passed by local municipalities and cities targeting rental property that I think are egregious to say the least, but I’ll save that for another article. What I’m pointing out is landlords today have a lot of laws to comply with and particularly for smaller landlords that may only own a rental or two, I think it can be a daunting task. This is evidenced by the fact that nearly every week I see where landlords have violated fair housing laws or the ADA most likely inadvertently and un-knowingly as it is hard to keep up with all the nuances of these laws…for example, did you know:
- Past drug addiction is a protected class? Meaning that you may NOT refuse to rent to someone on the basis that they were a drug addict in the past (they may have just completed rehab the week before). This is true even if they are a convicted felon for drug use.
- You CAN refuse to rent to someone that is a current drug user however, or someone that has even a single conviction for dealing or manufacturing illegal drugs
- You may NOT ask an applicant if they have a disability or illness even though your intention may be just to be sure you are addressing their disability and trying not to discriminate
- As you are showing a single-mom with a 2-year old the 2nd floor apartment with a balcony that she requested to see you suggest that she should look at an identical ground floor unit since the patio would be safer than a balcony with her 2 year old that this could be considered illegal steering?
My guess is, there is at least one item above that came as a surprise to you. This is just the tip of the iceberg though when it comes to everything a landlord must be aware of. Wouldn’t it be nice if your rental property came with an “Owners Manual” for landlords? Ah, while it didn’t come with your house, there is just the thing available. I came across a book written by Thomas E. Moorhead, J.D., an attorney with 35 years experience titled “Owner’s Manual for Landlords and Property Managers” that I have found to be an excellent reference and resource for landlords. The book covers Fair Housing laws and ADA (in fact all of the examples above are straight from the book) as well as the following topics:
- Your legal rights
- Rental criteria and procedures
- Advertising, applications and Testers
- Applicant screening
- Move-in Procedure
- Resolving problems during the rental period
- Move out (ready or not)
- See you in court
- Legally out
- Collections
I found the book easy to read and very informative. Throughout the book Mr. Moorhead use “Legal Points”, the more technical side of the issue, “Actual Cases”, which shows some real-life examples and the consequences and “Author’s Tips and Techniques”, which is practical easy to apply advice from Mr. Moorhead. This book is available from Amazon..ordering info is below.
Disclaimer and Disclosure:
Nothing in this article is intended to be legal advice or a legal opinion. This article is a review of the book Owner’s Manual for Landlord and Property Managers and is for information purposes only. Readers should not rely upon this article nor anything in it without consulting their attorney.
The author of this article did request from Mr. Moorhead a copy of the book so the review could be done and was given one at no cost. No promise of a favorable review was given to Mr. Moorhead.
If you do choose to order the book using the links provided in this article the owner of this blog and/or it’s author or other contributors will receive a commission on the purchase from Amazon. (we do have to eat afterall)
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