What Are Some Illegal Reasons To Reject A Tenant?
Federal and state fair housing laws regulate the tenant background screening process and prohibit a landlord from refusing to rent to a tenant because of the tenant’s race, religion, disability, sex, ethnicity, or because a tenant has children. Some state laws also prohibit discrimination based on age, marital status or sexual orientation. In particular, the Federal Fair Housing Act also prevents landlords from: • Ending a tenancy for a discriminatory reason • Setting different terms for different tenants (e.g., applying different income requirements for different tenants, or applying a different policy of late payments for different tenants) • Refusing to reasonably accommodate people with disabilities • Advertising a preference for certain groups (e.g., race) • Claiming falsely that a rental unit is unavailable to certain applicants Landlords only have to make reasonable, business-related judgments when selecting tenants. Reasonable minds can disagree over which tenant is best, so yo
