Q&A Fair Housing Waiver Policy - Legally Speaking

By Mark Zinman | Zona Law

Question: Our policy requires applicants to have an income of at least 2.5 times the monthly rent. We recently had an applicant who was short by approximately $68. I wanted to confirm whether making an exception in a case like this would raise any Fair Housing concerns.

Answer: Any time you waive a policy, you expose yourself to potential liability. If you waive a $68 policy for that person, the issue is the next person that follows after them: if you don’t waive it for the next person, then you will run into a fair housing issue. For example, what if the first person is white and the next is black – they can claim you rejected the second person and didn’t help them because of their skin color. If you are having trouble with your occupancy, it’s fine to lower your standards, but you need to document that change and offer it to everyone until you change it again, and you should not change it often.