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Yes. In San Diego. The owner of the unit I was interested in pretended to be (and to give her the benefit of the doubt perhaps was) dumbfounded when I told her that her telling me that she would not rent to a family with children was illegal and discriminatory. I didn't pursue anything or contact the housing people or even try and see the apartment since we were only going to be there a couple years, not permanently, and life is too short to fight under those circumstances.

As a REALTOR, I am embarrassed to hear this. Fair housing laws are constantly being drilled into our heads, and as someone who finds them to be obvious, I am always wondering how it it is that those in my profession are still being discriminatory.


I was once asked if the party submitting an offer on a home was , to which I replied, "It is as illegal for me to answer that question as it is for you to ask it." I am glad this couple has filed suit and I hope it yields them enough to pay for their daughter's future law education : )

part of my post was omitted...it should read, "I was once asked if a party submitting an offer on a home was (insert protected class)..."

I was told if the owner lives in the building they could legally not rent to you because you had a child and/or were pregnant. Is this true? Does it vary from state to state?
Our old landlord told us a month before my first child was born that he wasn't renewing our lease. Then he had the nerve to call my husband later that night and complain that I was emotional. Uh huh. It took us a long time to find a place that would rent to us. (I'm in the Boston area).
Hope these people CLEAN up $$$!

Are you kidding? Absolutely all the time. I'd say 50% of the places I look at in my small town will even ask you when you call to inquire "Any kids", "Yes", "Bye". Whatever, if they aren't kid friendly someone else can have my nice big rent check.

It's illegal in California to discriminate based on "pregnancy and] childbirth." Also: "It is illegal for landlords to discriminate against families with children under 18."

http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/discrimination.shtml

Different states have different laws. All states are covered bya set of federal laws called the Federal Housing Act. It looks like owner-occupied units with fewer than four units have certain exemptions. Refusing to rent to families with children due to potential lead paint issues like in the NYT article is prohibited. You can look up all these happy little details:

http://www.fairhousinglaw.org/

Good for them! From our experience, we've seen landlords who don't know any better, but then there's some that say "would prefer no kids" if you ask about it. I know they would rather just rent to a couple, but wouldn't advertise about it.

You can rent to whomever you want in NYC if the landlord owns a building smaller than 3 units. You can say no kids, no lawyers, no people who run you the wrong way, whatever. I'm pretty familiar with brooklyn heights -- I gotta think a carriage house is 3 units or smaller.

And the lead paint issue in NYC is an issue. It's on the landlord to REMOVE -- not paint over -- lead paint before a child moves in (altho not if child is born to a mother already in the apartment). It's so expensive to remove lead paint that the law is almost unenforceable and what happens is people try to just NOT rent to families -- which is illegal. Change that law, and I promise you people would rent to whomever can pay the bill.

We moved to Portland, OR and had been renting a unit in a duplex for a month when we found out that we were unexpectedly expecting. When we told our landlord his first comment was that they don't usually rent to people with children because they (children) tend to do more damage to a property. Meanwhile, our neighbors have been dealing with a leak for over a year and a half and have a stove they cannot use because the door falls off. Really, people?

Oh my, I JUST got off the phone with my mom, who lives in Portland, OR, who just told me they got the house they were looking to rent, because the other couple interested in it had a toddler. My mother, even though she got the house, was pretty offended by the land lord.

We have been discriminated against in Jamaica Plain, MA for having a kid and not getting a place. Just goes to show that even in these liberal cities, some people have sticks up their ass.

We live in the Boston area and a few years ago needed to move to a bigger rental space (with three kids and one more on the way). I called on every apartment I could find that would meet our needs and was told over and over, "It's not de-leaded"--code words for "we do not want children living here and are purposefully not getting it de-leaded." We had landlords yell at us for even inquiring about their apartments upon finding out about our children. We finally ended up buying a 2-family house and becoming landlords ourselves! How crazy is that?!!

This whole thing is sickening.....I hope those people clean up!

Shame on those landlords!

wow, where i live it is the opposite, its basically impossible to get something more than a 1br if you dont have kids, they reserve "bigger" apartments for families only.

Well, I can understand that a landlord would discriminate against renters with children since if you rent to them you are OBLIGED to delead the place. You know what deleading means and costs to meet state and/or federal regulations? The landlord would not make a cent from renting to his tenants for years if he is forced to delead the place. I'm sorry but there are 2 sides to this story.

bohemianbeauty7,

"Shame on those landlords!"

As a landlord would you enter into an agreement that is going to make you loose enormous amounts of cash for years to come???

Joe-

BTW, the word is "lose", not "loose".

Lead paint poses risks to adults as well. Are we to understand from your comment that you feel that landlords should just not take care of something that is potentially harmful to all populations because it's expensive?

It seems to me like a case of caveat emptor for landlords:the landlord acquired the building at some point, and should have known that if there are issues that need to be addressed, such as the presence of lead paint, they will need to address them, regardless of cost, to make inhabitation safe. If they cannot do so because they cannot afford to do so, then perhaps they should not purchase the building. Stating that the landlord should be able to refuse people because they can't take care of a basic health-related issue in the building due to cost is a nonsensical argument, to me.

beckyf,

Well, how many owners actually delead THEIR homes to meet state regulations? In the town I live you can count deleaded houses on your two hands and I live in a town with very comfortable incomes.

Lead is only dangerous if it is disturbed or in bad condition. It's a reflex for new parents to want to have their rental deleaded because the law says they are entitled to it. The vast majority of homeowners DO NOT delead because the cost is astronomical and lead is not a threat in most cases. Sure all houses built prior to 1979 are full of lead but that doesn't mean you are at risk.

Do you really want to get into this??? Do you know that most studies suggest that deleading a home doesn't do anything to keep lead dust levels down because lead dust comes mostly from outside the house? Do you know that leaf blowers spread dust and many other dangerous toxins (mercury, arsenic, etc.) and are far more dangerous to kids than the lead in your inside walls?

Forcing a landlord to delead an entire house is not fair or effective when the same people renting would not delead to meet state regulations if it was their own place.

Joe-
I'm not sure where the anger and multiple question marks come from; I'm not interested in getting into anything. I merely took exception to 1) your blatant misuse of "loose" and 2) your assertion that landlords shouldn't have to fix something potentially harmful because it costs them money to do so. This is the same mentality that has corporations doing harm to consumers everyday.

My point is not about whether individual homeowners should delead or not; its relevant only to whether landlords can refuse to rent to people because they don't want to delead.

As to your last point, I'm not entirely sure how it's relevant. It seems to me that if one decides to become a landlord, then one must adhere to legal regulations, and if it is not legal to refuse to rent to someone because they have children, and one must change something in the house to allow one to rent to them, such as deleading, then one needs to do so, or otherwise should not have undertaken becoming a landlord. That fact has no connection to what one would do as a non-landlord.

Don't bother responding; I won't be checking back on this thread again. Enjoy your rental property!

Beckyf,

I know the difference between "loose" and "lose". Thanks for condescending and achieving nothing about the subject at hand.

I am puzzled why you want to put such a burden on landlords? Corporate America was not held fully accountable for the lead-paint disaster so you just want to pass the blame to landlords (small or large.) That does not strike you as odd? Why not pass the blame to farmers only?

Deleading a house is a major hazard to people's health and it has not proven to reduce indoor lead dust. Deleaded houses have been shown to return to the same levels of lead after several months. Cleanliness is the most major culprit when it comes to lead poisoning and the biggest sources of contamination have always been lead in the air (thanks to leaded gas, which is now fully illegal as of the Clean Air Act of 1996 for all on-road vehicles) and lead dust from soil that gets dragged / blown indoors.

People should be held to the same laws. Either everyone should be forced to delead their homes or no one should be required to do so. Singling out landlords is just random. If you don't find that double-standard ridiculous, what can I say?

If you read about the subject in scientific literature, you will find that deleading is not effective and in fact is quiet dangerous in most cases.

PS: I'm a happy homeowner living in an old house filled with lead and I do not / have not ever owned any rental properties.