Tenant Discrimination Laws and Overview

Tenant discrimination is an ever-growing problem in the United States these days even though there are laws against discrimination when it comes to determining whether or not a landlord will rent a property to a specific person. Landlords are legally allowed to deny a tenant’s application for rent if they feel that the tenant will not pay their rent on time or will damage the property when living there. The landlord must perform a tenant screening process prior to accepting them or denying them as a tenant. The landlord should speak with the tenant’s former landlord, check their credit, and also check their criminal record. What a landlord cannot do is perform housing discrimination against a tenant because of their age, race, religion, education, ethnicity or disability.

Types of Tenant Discrimination

There are various types of tenant discrimination around today that are deemed illegal by the United States government. Landlords, when deciding whom to rent property to, are not allowed to decline an application for rent for one or more of the following reasons:

• The age of the prospective tenant
• The race of the prospective tenant
• The ethnicity of the prospective tenant
• Any disability the prospective tenant might have
• The education history of the prospective tenant
• The religion of the prospective tenant
• The sexual preference of the prospective tenant
• The familial status of the prospective tenant
• The national origin of the prospective tenant

Taking Legal Action

Prospective tenants that have had their rent application denied and feel that they have been discriminated against should hire a real estate attorney as soon as possible. An attorney will be able to investigate the screening practices of the landlord and whether or not the landlord has documented proof of the screening process. If there is no proof that the landlord actually screened the prospective tenant then there is a cause for housing discrimination.

Fines and Penalties

After legal action is taken against a landlord for tenant discrimination the courts can fine or penalize the landlord based on the Fair Housing Act that makes tenant discrimination illegal. Penalties and fines applied to landlords include the following:

• $11,000 fine for violating the terms of the Fair Housing Act as a first offense
• $55,000 fine for each additional offense of the Fair Housing Act
• Money awarded by the court to the plaintiff from the defendant can range from thousands of dollars to millions of dollars

Checking Status of Lawsuit

Once a lawsuit is filed against the landlord the status of the suit can be checked via the attorney representing the tenant or by contacting the court where the suit was filed.

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