Tristan’s Landlord-Tenant Law Blog
Attempt to Add Source of Income and Veteran Status As New Federal Protected Classes
Two U.S. Senators recently introduced a new federal bill that is being referred to as the "Fair Housing Improvement Act" (FHIA). The FHIA introduces two additional protected classes to the seven protected classes under the Fair Housing Act of 1968. The first proposal would make veterans of wars a new federal protected class.The second, would make "source of income" a new federal protected class. If "source of income" becomes a federal ...
HUD Announces $3 Million Dollar Settlement with California Landlords for Discriminating Against Families With Children By Requiring Supervision and Prohibiting Outside Play
Earlier today, April 10, 2023, HUD announced that two of its housing partners reached a $3 Million settlement with a California property management company and more than 30 owners who were discriminating against families with children by prohibiting any outdoor play activities and requiring adult supervision of all children under the age of 14 years in all common areas. Its was alleged that tenants who violated those rules faced the threat ...
GUEST POST: Wisconsin Rental Income Standards and Section 8 Rent Vouchers
Guest post from Tim Ballering - justalandlord.com~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~From a Fair Housing perspective, you probably must account in some manner for the value of the Section 8 payment when calculating an income multiplier guideline.I’ve read of the argument made in other jurisdictions that if an owner is using a rent multiplier, that it should be on net rent to the tenant. This is probably not a workable answer for either tenant ...
Part 2: Landlords Can Be Liable for the Discriminatory Acts of Their Tenants
I received an email from a reader regarding my last post about the Wetzel case. The reader essentially asked me what a landlord could do to make sure that they do not become liable for the discriminatory acts of their tenants like what happened to the landlord in the Wetzel case.While I cannot give legal advice (i.e. applying the law to a certain set of facts) via this blog, I ...
Landlords Can Be Liable for the Discriminatory Acts of Their Tenants
Perhaps one of the most important cases to be published in 2018 affecting landlord-tenant law was the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals case of Wetzel v. Glen St. Andrew Living Community, LLC, 2018 WI 4057365 (7th Cir. Aug 27, 2018). In the Wetzelcase the Seventh Circuit (which includes Wisconsin) held that a landlord may be liable under the Fair Housing Act (FHA) for failing to protect a tenant from ...
Milwaukee County Passes Ordinance Making "Receipt of Rental or Housing Assistance" A Protected Class
On June 21, 2018 the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors passed a county ordinance amending Chapter 107 of the County Code of Ordinances (which deals with Fair Housing) adding "receipt of rental or housing assistance" as a protected class. The ordinance went into effect as of July 19, 2018. The Milwaukee County's Office of Corporation Counsel shall be responsible for enforcement. The revised ordinance defines "receipt of rental or housing assistance" ...
Milwaukee County Proposes A New Protected Class in Housing - "Receipt of Rental or Housing Assistance"
Milwaukee County Supervisor Maria Dimitrijevec is sponsoring a resolution to amend the Milwaukee County Code of General Ordinances related to Fair Housing to include a new protected class - the "receipt of rental or housing assistance." The resolution has been referred to the Economic Development Committee and may be scheduled to be discussed at the committee's meeting on March 12, 2018 at 9 AM.If passed, this resolution ...
What Is The Difference Between A Service Animal, An Emotional Support Animal, A Comfort Animal, A Companion Animal, and a Therapy Animal?
There is much confusion regarding the difference between the various terms used for assistance animals. Landlords, tenants, tenant's health care providers, lawyers and even the courts are often confused when it comes to this issue. Hopefully this blog post will help.I often use the generic term "assistance animal" to refer to any animal that is prescribed for a tenant to assist him or her in some way. ...
HUD Issues New Guidelines On The Use of Criminal Records In The Rental Screening Process
On April 4, 2016 the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) dropped a bombshell on owners and managers of residential rental properties in the U.S.HUD's Office of General Counsel published a 10 page guide entitled "Guidance on Application of Fair Housing Act Standards to the Use of Criminal Records by Providers of Housing and Real-Estate Related Transactions." This guide essentially changes the rules as we ...
Can A Landlord Deny A Reasonable Accommodation Request For A Pit Bull Companion Animal?
As I have mentioned in a prior blog post I have seen a significant increase in tenant requests for a reasonable accommodation to a landlord's "no pet" policy so that the tenant can keep a comfort/companion animal. As a result of this increase, I am also seeing an increase in reasonable accommodation requests to keep what are often referred to as "dangerous breeds" of dogs -- such as Pit ...
AASEW MEETING: "Companion Animals - When A Landlord Must Accept Them" on August 18, 2014
I will be speaking at the AASEW's monthly meeting on the issue of companion/comfort animals and when a landlord must accept them in their rental properties.Disability-related complaints, including those that involve assistance animals, are the most common complaint filed with HUD over the past few years. While the definition of a "service animal" under the ADA is very limited and requires that the animal be specifically trained (and excludes ...
Occupancy Standards . . . Not As Simple As "2 Persons Per Bedroom"
Simply stated, occupancy standards focus on how many individuals can live in a rental unit. Landlords have the right to set reasonable, non-discriminatory, limits as to how many people can live in a rental unit.Many landlords believe that as long as they follow a policy of "2 person per bedroom" that they will be fine. Unfortunately that is not always the case. There is no clear-cut ...
So Let's Talk About . . . Companion/Comfort Animals In Rental Properties
I have been promising that I would blog about this topic for months (could it possibly be over a year even) and the time has finally come. So let's talk about companion/comfort animals in rental properties.Background:I will use the terms comfort animals and companion animals interchangeably throughout this post.So we are all on the “same page" a companion animal is an animal ...
5 Things This Landlords' Attorney Wants For Christmas
With the coming of the holidays, comes list of gifts that people want for Christmas. So I thought I would put together one of my own. So here is a list of the top 5 things that this landlords' lawyer would like for Christmas. 5. That Tenants' Requests For Reasonable Accommodations To Allow for the Keeping of Companion/Comfort Animals Would Actually Be "Reasonable"The past few years -- and especially this past ...
HUD Issues New Rule On "Discriminatory Effect" a.k.a Disparate Impact
HUD has issued a new Fair Housing “disparate impact” rule that may cause problems for landlords during the screening process. The new rule creates a new provision entitled “Prohibiting Discriminatory Effects” which defines “discriminatory effect” as situations in which a facially neutral (i.e. not discriminatory) housing practice can become discriminatory if it actually or predictably has an effect on a group of persons that are members of a protected ...
You Will Not Want To Miss AASEW's Fourth Annual Landlord Boot Camp on Saturday Feb. 25th
Landlording can be pretty complex, with a seemingly never ending myriad of paperwork, rules, landlord-tenant laws and simple mistakes that can cost you thousands of dollars.The Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin's Fourth Annual “Landlord Boot Camp” can help you navigate these treacherous waters and teach you how to run your properties with greater profit and less hassles.I have given similar landlord-tenant law seminars to fellow attorneys, landlords, and property manager ...
New Federal Bill Would Add Two New Protected Classes To Federal Fair Housing Act
On September 26, 2011 both chambers of the U.S. Congress introduced legislation that would extend housing discrimination laws to include protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The HOME (Housing Opportunities Made Equal) Act was introduced by Sen. John Kerry and others. The bill would amend the Fair Housing Act to prohibit housing discrimination and intimidation on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.Wisconsin is one ...
Three Wisconsin Landlords Charged with Violating Fair Housing Laws
Three Wisconsin landlords have recently been charged with violating Fair Housing laws by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).First, in late July, HUD announced that it charged a husband and wife who own a rental property in Brown County with violating the Fair Housing Act for allegedly creatingdifferent rental requirements for a single mother and her son. The charge also alleges that the landlords’ lease agreement ...
Largest Settlement of State Fair Housing Claim Occurs in Arizona
A 2007 Fair Housing complaint filed by two Arizona tenants alleging that their apartment managers discriminated against them based on their race, nationality and religion, has resulted in the largest state Fair Housing claim to date.In 2007, Soha Abdelrahman and her husband Hany Obrahim filed a lawsuit against their Tempe, Arizona apartment managers claiming discrimination based upon their Arabic race, Egyption nationality and Muslim religion. The defendant in the ...
A Landlord's Primer on "Reasonable Accommodations"
I am seeing an increase in tenants making "reasonable accommodations" requests during their tenancy. While similar to "reasonable modifications," which I blogged about a few weeks ago, reasonable accommodations are different.A reasonable accommodation request is one in which a tenant who has a disability asks his/her landlord to make an accomodation to the landlord's rules, policies, practices or services as a result of that disability. Wisconsin's ...