The federal Fair Housing Act

Federal protection in California

The federal Fair Housing Act prohibits housing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, and disability. The statute calls disability “handicap.” Familial status includes qualifying households with children under 18, pregnancy, and persons securing legal custody of a child.

Follow the transaction

Protection extends from access to housing through transaction terms and enjoyment of the home. Refusing to negotiate, discriminatory terms or services, and falsely denying availability can violate the Act. Notices, statements, and advertisements may not express prohibited preferences.

Steering directs customers' housing choices based on protected characteristics. Blockbusting seeks profit by inducing sales or rentals through representations about protected groups entering a neighborhood. Redlining involves discriminatory restrictions on housing finance based on neighborhood characteristics tied to protected categories. Legitimate credit and property analysis remain permissible. Federal law also protects access to multiple listing services and brokerage organizations.

Disability: distinguish the duties

A reasonable accommodation changes rules, practices, or services when necessary for equal housing opportunity; an assistance-animal exception to a no-pets policy is an example. A reasonable modification physically changes the premises, such as a needed grab bar. Under the Act's modification rule, the person with a disability pays; reasonable restoration of a rental's interior may be required. Protection also covers disability of residents and associates of buyers or renters. Covered multifamily construction has separate accessibility duties. A disability label alone does not establish a direct threat.

Exceptions have boundaries

A qualifying private-owner single-family transaction requires compliance with ownership and transaction limits and no broker sales or rental services. Another exemption concerns owner-occupied dwellings for no more than four families. These exemptions leave the discriminatory-advertising prohibition intact. Religious organizations and private clubs have limited exceptions for qualifying noncommercial housing.

Qualifying housing for older persons is exempt from familial-status protection, not race protection. The 55-and-older category requires at least 80 percent of occupied units to have at least one resident 55 or older, qualifying policies, and occupancy verification. The 62-and-older category uses a different occupancy standard.

An Act exemption is not blanket permission under every law: the Civil Rights Act of 1866 independently protects citizens' equal property rights regardless of race. California law is stricter. The state Fair Employment and Housing Act has neither of the two small-owner exemptions; its comparable rule covers only renting to a single roomer or boarder within an owner-occupied single-family home. California also sets its own senior-housing standards in Civil Code sections 51.2 through 51.4. Federal law also prohibits coercion, threats, and interference against people exercising or helping others exercise fair housing rights.