Archives for February 2018

Property managers can use these eight recommendations to keep discrimination lawsuits at bay.
In October, a Massachusetts landlord who refused to rent to pregnant women or families with minor children was found guilty of violating the federal Fair Housing Act and fined $40,000. The same month, the Fair Housing Justice Center in New York sued a landlord for allegedly quoting higher rental rates to black prospective tenants, rejecting applicants with public rent assistance, and making children undergo unnecessary lead tests. Five months earlier, a federal jury in Montana fined a landlord $37,000 after she charged a disabled tenant $1,000 to have a service animal.
Cases such as these are stark reminders for property managers and landlords that neglecting to follow antidiscrimination rules designed to protect renters can come with big consequences. You know the fundamentals of fair housing: You shouldn’t ask any questions or base any housing-related decisions on an applicant’s race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or familial status, and you mustn’t promote a property in terms such as “great building for single professionals.” But knowing the law and complying with it are two different things, which can be made difficult by the continual evolution of case law related to housing discrimination.
Tenant screening provides a first line of defense against discrimination complaints. That’s because differences in factors such as an applicant’s income, employment, references, and credit histories can help justify the selection of one tenant over another and thereby help landlords avoid discrimination charges. Here are eight recommendations for using the screening process to keep discrimination lawsuits at bay.
DO apply your policies and procedures uniformly. Avoid running a full tenant screening report on some applicants and only a credit check on others. If you have a policy of renting to applicants with the best credit, don’t make an exception for a would-be tenant with a better personality but a less positive credit report. Be consistent or be vulnerable to discrimination complaints.
DON’T get too personal on rental application forms. Ask about jobs, previous addresses, income, and references. But stay away from specific questions about spouses or children, as well as other protected characteristics under the Fair Housing Act. (You can provide space for an applicant to list all the individuals who would be living in the apartment.) Even asking the question may give the impression that you would limit housing access based on the answers.
DO choose a “colorblind” screening service. Some services have a scoring system that enables landlords to establish their preferred tenant profile based on specific parameters, such as income, past evictions, and credit score. The software then evaluates each applicant according to the criteria and returns a “recommend” or “not recommend” verdict completely independent of race, religion, or other potentially discriminatory factors. This ensures that applicants are evaluated equally, providing a strong defense, assuming you follow the software’s recommendations.
DON’T automatically reject an applicant with a criminal record. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a memorandum on housing providers’ use of arrest and conviction records to make housing-related decisions. According to Jodie McDougal, a partner at the Davis Brown Law Firm in Des Moines, Iowa, these guidelines mean that you cannot have blanket policies excluding all applicants who are felons or consider arrest records. Instead, you should perform a case-by-case evaluation. Read McDougal’s explanation and recommendations.
DO stay abreast of new developments affecting screening. One of them is a pending amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, introduced in Congress last August. Currently, eviction reports used in the tenant screening process can include records dating back seven years. Under the proposed amendment, called the Tenant Protection Act, only eviction records no older than three years and resulting in a judgment that is not being appealed would be allowed. Use of older records would be viewed as discriminatory.
DO keep all documentation for up to 10 years. That includes rental applications, signed releases, tenant screening reports, and any other data or documents collected during the screening process—even if you don’t rent to the applicant. This information may be crucial if a rejected applicant questions your denial or selection of a different tenant. A paper trail can help you prove that the person was not denied residency based on discrimination but because a more qualified tenant was selected instead.
DO send a declination letter when rejecting a potential tenant. This document, also called an “adverse action letter,” specifies the reason or reasons for rejecting a rental application, such as income, employment, or credit history. Some screening services provide free declination letters with all the federally required language, along with a checklist of legitimate reasons for turning down a candidate.
DO call your attorney when in doubt. With new legal challenges and decisions coming out on a regular basis, it’s wise to have a legal resource you can turn to with questions. Find an attorney who can periodically review your rental application form to make it sure it complies with the latest antidiscrimination requirements. It will help prevent you from making a mistake that may land you in court.
By: Robbie Cronrod (NAR)
Click here to view source article.

At the February 2018 LIN Meeting held on February 21, 2018, 25 excellent properties were presented.
Thank you for presenting properties and attending the meeting!
Thank you to Glenn Wright who hosted 1550 Tramway Blvd NE Print Flyer.
View February 2018 LIN properties here.
View February 2018 LIN PowerPoint Presentation here.
View February 2018 LIN Thank Yous here.

Make way for a new cryptocurrency: Property Coin is being touted as the first real estate-backed digital currency.
Aperture Real Estate Ventures, a Los Angeles–based real estate technology and investment firm, plans to launch the cryptocurrency at the end of February. Until then, the company is giving investors an “opportunity to own a professionally managed portfolio of real estate assets via the blockchain.”
The creators are presenting Property Coin as an alternative to the volatility of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on the market. Sale proceeds from Property Coin will go toward growing Aperture’s real estate investment business, which uses proprietary technologies to spot and then invest in undervalued properties in metro areas across the U.S.
“Unlike many cryptocurrency offerings, Property Coin’s proposition is straightforward,” says Andrew Jewett, co-CEO of Aperture. “One hundred percent of the net proceeds from sales of Property Coins will be used to invest in properties and loans identified by our proprietary software and our experienced team. Accordingly, Property Coin is designed to be 100 percent backed by real estate assets, giving each coin holder a fractional economic interest in the investments made by Aperture or its affiliates with the net proceeds realized from the sale of Property Coins.”
Each Property Coin holder “owns a fractionalized piece of assets owned by that entity, and as we reinvest profits into property, the underlying value will go up.”
Property Coin is built on Ethereum, a blockchain platform, which is second to bitcoin worldwide.
Property Coin will sell for $50 per coin at its initial offering on Feb. 26. U.S. investors must purchase a minimum of $1,000 worth of coins.
Property Coin will be focused on the U.S. real estate market initially, but it will be available for purchase to investors from around the world.
By: (NAR Mag)
Click here to view source article.

On Thursday, February 15, the House of Representatives voted to pass HR 620, the ADA Education and Reform Act, by a vote of 225-192.  This bipartisan legislation, sponsored by Rep. Poe (R-TX), adds a “notice-and-cure” provision to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), giving businesses an opportunity to fix alleged violations before a suit can be filed against them.  It also creates an education program between the Department of Justice, states/local governments, and businesses to raise awareness of ADA compliance issues, and a model mediation program for resolving ADA complaints.
In recent years, the practice of “drive-by-ADA suits,” in which attorneys hit many businesses with demand letters for small, easily curable infractions of the ADA (sometimes multiple times), has risen.  This disproportionately impacts small businesses and commercial properties, and they often end up spending time and resources settling the issue instead of on actually fixing the violation.  The attorneys behind these suits are simply trying to collect the legal fees associated with them; under the ADA, plaintiffs themselves do not collect any damages.  H.R. 620 restores integrity to the ADA by incentivizing businesses to quickly resolve ADA violations, ultimately furthering the purpose of the ADA: to ensure access for all individuals to public spaces.
NAR advocated strongly in support of HR 620, sending a letter of support to the full House of Representatives, and issuing a commercial-targeted call-for-action ahead of the floor vote.  Many state associations also reached out to their Congressional delegations in support of the bill.  NAR looks forward to working with the Senate on crafting a companion bill and ultimately working to see this legislation passed into law.
By: Erin Stackley, Fred Underwood, Helen Devlin (NAR)
Click here to view source article.