Here’s a safe list of the top tips every landlord needs to Remember when interviewing prospective tenants, and how to avoid discrimination lawsuits under the Fair Housing Act. When selecting your tenant, keep these in mind.
It is unlawful to discriminate. Federal and state anti-discrimination laws control what you can say and do in the tenant rental process. You can’t reject someone your apartment purely because of their ethnic group. If using a real estate agent to list your apartment, you can’t tell them that you will not lease to a particular ethnic group.
Ask for Current Employment information, References, and proof of Credit Score. Landlords can easily run a credit check of potential tenants on the internet for a deminimis fee. Furthermore, you can and should call the tenant’s references, in particular ex- landlords. You should also verify an applicant’s employment, wages, and bank checking account information. In case the landlord tenant relationship goes sour and you need to hire an eviction new york attorney, you will want the tenant’s employment information to garnish their income so you can collect back rent.
Be constant in your screening. Make it your procedure, for example, to always demand credit reports; don’t just get a credit report for a single parent or individuals of a particular race.
Make decisions based on the fact that you are running a business. You are lawfully free to select among forthcoming tenants as long as your choices are based on legitimate business criteria. Don’t make decisions based on personal reasons. You are at liberty to reject applicants with deficient credit histories, income that you realistically regard as not enough to pay the rent, or former behavior — such as property destruction or regular tardy rent payments — that makes them a bad risk. It goes without saying that you may legally refuse to rent to a personwho can’t come up with the security deposit, who has animals, or who neglect to meet some other specification of the rental.
Be informed of landlord tenant statutes in your neighborhood. Fair housing statutes in particular list clearly illegitimate reasons to decline to rent to a tenant. The Federal Fair Housing Act prohibits prejudice on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, age, domestic status, physical or psychological disability (including recovering alcoholics and tenants with a previous drug addiction). Countless states and cities also disallow discrimination based on marital status or sexual orientation. In addition, some municipality laws disallow landlords from collecting rental fees until they have a “legal apartment”, i.e. have a town or county issued certificate authorizing a two family apartment or an accessory apartment. A landlord tenant new york lawyer can help inform you of the laws applicable in your region.
Guide those helping you to rent so that they understand the rules, too. Anyone who de als with forthcoming tenants must abide by fair housing laws. This includes owners, landlords, relatives of landlords, managers and real estate agents, and all of their employees. As the home landlord, you may possibly be held lawfully liable for your family’s prejudiced statements or conduct, including sexual harassment.
Be consistent. Consistency is necessary whendealing with soon-to-be tenants. If you don’t handle all tenants more or less equally — for instance, if you randomly set tougher standards when renting totenants of a racial minority — you are violating federal statutes and opening yourself up to civil suits. And if you give one person a break (such as lowering thesecurity deposit for a unmarried mother but not for other tenants), you’ll also chance an allegation of discrimination from other renters.
Want to find out more? There’s a lot more to finding and selectingexcellent tenants. You should e-mail a ny tenant landlord lawyer for a free discussion about the statutes applicable in your region.