Articles — fair housing

Welcome to the rental industry. You are an owner or manager whose income is created by providing one of the most basic human needs: housing. Because it is so fundamental to our existence, housing touches hearts. It creates emotion. It brings out the best and worst. It is also a pawn in the political game that our government plays. As a result, you are going to get sued. The sooner you realize that fact, the better. When you deal with issues that touch people’s hearts and arouses their emotions, lawsuits result. It’s just a fact. Expect it. And realize that...

Those of you subscribe to my newsletter already know this, but there is a new group that is conducting Fair Housing testing on a fairly widespread basis in central Kentucky. Fair Housing Advocates, Inc., is an organization out of Arlington, Texas, who, according to their website, provides advocacy and education related to Fair Housing issues. Here is their website and their Facebook page.  Currently, their testers are calling apartment complexes throughout central Kentucky claiming to be interested in renting an apartment. Their current ruse is to claim to be a disabled person with an Assistance Animal (typically an emotional support...

THE STORY Bailey is the property manager of The Colosseum, a 250-unit luxury complex. The Colosseum allows its residents to own pets, but has a list of restricted breeds that includes all the usual suspects: Pit Bills, Rottweilers, German Shepherds, Chows, etc. Recently, Bailey has received several complaints that a Pit Bull was on the property near the 300 Building. None of those who complained could associate the animal with any particular resident, and no one on Bailey’s staff had ever seen the dog when they investigated the complaints. One afternoon as she was walking the grounds with a member...

  Philosopher John Stuart Mill famously said that landlords “grow rich in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing”. While it’s debatable whether that was true in Mill’s day, the “without risking” portion of Mill’s quote is certainly false today. My blog posts on Kentucky’s strict liability standard for landlords in dog-bite cases alone should make that clear. However, when you combine broad liability for dog bites with the dramatic increase in tenants with Assistance Animals, landlords often feel like they’re darned if they do and darned if they don’t. When you add in the fact that many Assistance Animals...

Katie is the property manager for a new 300-unit luxury apartment complex. During the construction phase, Katie worked with the property owners to develop a Resident Selection Policy (RSP) that would ensure that only top-notch tenants would be approved as residents. As a result, the RSP prohibited any residents who had been arrested for or charged with committing a crime from being approved. Johnny Football's Application As luck would have it, Katie was floored to receive an application one day from a Jonathan Paul Manziel. Katie had family in Texas and is a huge football fan, so this application caught...