A recent article I read has brought to light the need for anyone involved in Park City property management to be aware of discrimination testing and know some of common pitfalls that landlords and property manager can fall into when it comes to Park City long term rentals. Discrimination testing is performed by the Disability Law Center (DLC) which is a "private, non-profit organization designated by the governor as Utah’s Protection and Advocacy (P&A) agency" and is set up to "enforce and strengthen laws that protect the opportunities, choices and legal rights of Utahns with disabilities."
The DLC conducts discrimination testing using two testers, a control tester who is not in a protected class and a second tester who is in a protected class. I have previously written about Fair Housing laws in my post "Fair Housing And Park City Property Management: Are You At Risk?" but briefly protected classes are race, religion, sex, color, national origin, age, citizenship, pregnancy, familial status, disability, and veteran. The two testers contact a property manager or landlord and inquire about housing. Problems occur when there is a difference in treatment between the control tester and the protected tester. Let's take a look at some of the common mistakes made in it comes to protected classes in Salt Lake City property management.
Service Animals
Asking for a pet deposit or pet rent for a service animal is illegal. A companion animal also falls into this category. If you have a person applying to live in your rental property and they have a service or companion animal you cannot charge pet rent or a pet deposit for this animal. The tenant is still responsible if the animal does any damage to the property but a deposit cannot be taken in advance. Once an animal is identified as a service or companion animal you can ask for proper documentation on the animal but the questions should stop there.
Disability Questions
You should never ask, in any way, what the nature of a person's disability is. The person is not obligated to tell you what their disability is and you are not allowed to ask. Even in casual conversation you can't ask this question in Park City property management.
Availability
Never ever ever tell a person that you do not have any availability when in fact you do. You should already have in place a procedure for reviewing whether a tenant is qualified to rent a property through your application process. If you don't already have something in place to property screen tenants you should take a look at my blog post "5 Ways Tenant Screening Helps - Park City Property Management." Just looking at a person and telling them you don't have anything available is a definite red flag.
Incentives
If you are currently offering some type of move in incentive to get your property rented you had better make sure you offer the incentive to everyone who inquires. Discounts and the like can be very discriminatory when they are only offered to a select group of people.
If you would like more information on how to not discriminate when handling tenants, or further information about Park City property management in general click the link below for a free consultation. You will receive valuable information specific to your property that will help you make an informed decision. You will also receive a free, no-obligation quote on our property management services. At CC Realty we specialize in making investment property ownership a trouble free experience. Please contact us today for your free consultation.
photo credit #1
In a previous blog, 3 Tips For Successful Residential Property Management, I briefly touched on the Fair Housing Act and some possible consequences to getting sideways with Uncle Sam. In this blog I would like to go over the act in a little better detail as I feel this is something that many people have heard of but know little about. In particular how this act relates to rental property management is something every landlord should be aware of.
The Fair Housing Act
Passed in 1968 the act prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of property to any individual based on race, religion and national origin. An update to the law in 1974 included gender to this list. Most people would view the discrimination against these four classes as an obvious no-no but an update to the law in 1988 created two new classes you might not know about.
Handicap
We are all familiar with the ubiquitous handicap parking signs but handicap or disability is also a protected class when it comes to rental properties. For example if you set a no pets policy at your rental property, or if your property is part of a condominium association that does not allow pets, you cannot refuse to rent to a blind person who uses a Seeing Eye dog. Also a landlord cannot prohibit a disabled tenant from making, at their own expense, reasonable modifications to the property that will allow them to use it. However if a modification is made the disabled tenant is obligated to restore the property to original condition upon their moving. And finally if there are any rules or policies that inhibit a disabled person from using the housing then reasonable accommodations must be made for the tenant.
Familial Status
Familial status, a somewhat confusing term, can easily be understood as having kids. Discrimination against this type of protected class can be somewhat difficult to understand but I have found a simple way to determine if a rule or policy is discriminatory. A posted rule stating "No kids in the pool from 10-2" may see innocuous enough but if "kids" were to be replaced with "Asians" or "Catholics" then it becomes clear that the rule is discriminatory. I recently had a resident stop by my office concerned about the prospect of having a new neighbor move in above them. They were concerned about the noise and asked that I would only rent to a single person, preferably a woman with no kids who worked as a flight attendant! Not only was the request a little extreme but it would also be a discriminatory practice. As a professional property manager I cannot even engage in what is called "steering", the act of suggesting only certain properties to a family or other protected class.
What Does This Mean For Me?
Great question, glad you asked! There are rules regarding what housing is covered by the Act and what is not. Generally most housing is covered but under certain circumstances a single-family home rented without the use of a broker is not covered, as long as the owner of the property does not also own more than four rental properties at a time. For reference you can take a look at an overview of the Fair Housing Act or, if you are really suffering from insomnia, you can take a look at the entire text of the Act here. Now if I could make a recommendation to anyone it would be to follow the requirements of the Act whether you think you should or not. While it is always best to error on the side of caution you can be certain that your actions in managing a rental property are ethical and honest.