The Fair Housing Act of 1968 (FHA) is a federal law that prohibits all sorts of discrimination. This federal law was enacted first in 1968 to fight against racial and color discrimination, and with due time, it has included all other discriminatory acts punishable, such as discriminating against religion, sex, gender, status, age, disability, and national origin

These protection laws have evolved and expanded over the years, to ensure no one is discriminated against at workplaces, housing communities, or public places while buying or selling houses, etc. As the laws keep changing and expanding, it is crucially important to stay updated with these laws if you want to stay in compliance with the law.

There are many possible ways you can keep yourself updated with the Fair Housing Laws. One such way is to join Fair Housing Webinars. This is especially important for housing agencies and employers. Read this article to know about the 3 latest fair housing law updates.

1. Disparate Impact

Disparate impact basically means the changed policies that have impacted adversely on the protected classes. This could be either an intentional case or unintentional. Since FHA has expanded so much in the last few years, it’s common to have missed areas of unintentional discrimination while changing housing policies.

Although unintentional, this act is not acceptable by the FHA and other discriminatory laws. So the next time you bring changes into your policies or procedures, ensure you are properly documenting your process and identify legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for the change of policy and procedure. It’s always advisable to check with local housing associations and legal professionals before applying the new policy, as certain areas have additional protected classes under FHA.

2. Background Checks

HUD’s guidelines and explanations have emphasized the matter that how criminal background checks have different impacts on people of color. Statistically, these people have a higher incarceration rate and are more likely to have background records of criminal-related activities, such as drug-related crimes. The new guidelines encourage housing agencies and house owners to avoid one-strike prohibitions or arrest records. Instead, the law encourages the landlords to put more focus on the nature of the crime, its recency, and most importantly, the severity of the crime to reach a final decision.

This means, now landlords have to focus on the crimes that impose real threats to the health and safety of others. And housing agencies must bring a change in their tenant’s selection criteria based on the new focus of the criminal background records policy.

3. Language Proficiency

A recent FHA law announces under HUD, that discrimination against limited English speaking proficiency is a violation of the Fair Housing Act.

Landlords and housing agencies must keep the application process and forms the same for all, which would make the entire process fair. This means regardless of discriminating against anyone’s primary language or even favoring others.

Conclusion

There are new FHA laws very often and it’s crucial to keep track of all these laws if you are in the housing industry. Most of these laws are taken seriously under federal and state laws, and obligation to them is mandatory and not a choice.

Failure or negligence can also have some really costly and serious consequences, which you would like to avoid. Therefore, make sure you keep yourself updated with the knowledge of new FHA and HUD laws.