Articles — HUD

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...

Merle is property manager at Opry Village, a 250-unit property in Muskogee. He has been managing property for many years and recently guided the property through a massive renovation. Through the years, he has worked with the property owners to develop a resident selection policy that brings in the best tenants to the property, as well as rules and regulations that keep the property safe, orderly, and clean for all the residents. When the renovations were completed, Merle enacted a no-pet policy in order to prevent damage to the newly renovated units. One afternoon Merle is a bit surprised to...

Our recent theme on the blog has been familial status discrimination. My first article on the topic delved into age-related rules that are commonly used by landlords and gave some guidelines on which rules to eliminate and which need to be revised to comply with Fair Housing law. My most recent article was about a property manager who tried to keep residents with children separated from those without children. Her intent was to keep the children in a safer part of the property and to keep noise levels down for residents without children. The fact patterns in both articles were...

THE ISSUES Kelsey has managed rental property for many years. For the last 10 years, she has been with a small apartment community with 28 units. The property has two buildings, one in the front and one in the back of the property. During Kelsey's early years at the property, she had several residents complain that cars were speeding in the parking lot. Apparently, several of the offenders had nearly hit some children playing near the front building. Kelsey followed up on the complaints and did her best to identify the speeding vehicles, but she could never pin the offense on any...