What are the fair housing laws you need to follow when you’re renting out a home in California?
This can be a complicated topic, but it’s an important one. Fair housing laws were enacted at the federal level to prevent discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of properties in the housing industry.
The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 to prevent discrimination based on race.
In 1968, the act was amended to include a prohibition against discrimination based on a number of other protected classes. This law prevents landlords from refusing to rent to someone based on additional, specific characteristics.
Protected Classes: Federal Law versus California Law
The seven federally protected classes are:
- Race
- Religion
- National origin
- Color
- Sex
- Disability
- Familial status
You cannot refuse anyone housing based on those things. In California, however, there are 13 more protected classes in addition to those at the federal level. These include:
- Marital status
- Sexual orientation
- Age
- Ancestry
- Medical condition
- Genetic information
- Gender identity
- Gender expression
- Source of income
- Citizenship
- Primary language
- Immigration status
- Veteran and military status
As you can see, the California protections go quite a bit further than the federal fair housing protections.
What Are Fair Housing Laws Designed to Do?
Fair housing laws are in place to prevent discrimination and allow equality within the housing industry.
At Sacramento Delta, we are committed to staying compliant with all state and federal fair housing laws. We do it to protect all of the people we work with: rental property owners,
Sacramento property managers, real estate agents, brokers, lenders, newspapers, insurance agents, architects and developers-- and this is just a brief list. We do this because
anyone can be named in a complaint or a lawsuit.
To stay compliant with fair housing laws, you must be informed and educated on all of the current laws and any amendments that are included in the laws and can take place at any time.
Understanding fair housing laws is especially important in California. This state is known for leading the way in all laws, whether we’re talking about
rent control or eviction, Section 8 housing or fair housing laws.
When you’re renting out a property in California, you have to be aware of and compliant with the law before a tenancy, during a tenancy, and after a tenancy. If you’re not careful, your marketing materials can be found to violate fair housing laws.
