Condo Association Management Blog

It does not take a very smart person to figure out. If they had good credit they would certainly not need to be renting! They would be owning! Especially in this day and age. When rentals are at their peak due to foreclosures!!!! Does not mean that person is not worth renting to nor does it mean your run a risk renting to them everyone needs a place to live! Maybe your property manager is right? you can ask what race they are but they do not have to answer BY LAW! Thats called discrimination...

You must be cautious with screening the tenants, you are violating the Civil Rights Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1991 based on race, if the prospective tenants has bad credit you can charge them more on down payment based on risk but not based on any of the class under the Civil Rights Act, race, color, sex, family status, handicap, nationality, religion, they can accused you of discrimination. 
 
 
 
Thank you,  
 

I would strongly recommend that you take take a Fair Housing Seminar. You can get into some very expensive litigation over these preventable faux pas. Be familiar with the protected categories and be aware that California has even more.

The situation would be the same in South Africa. You can do a credit check and make a decision based on what you see. You can ask for references from previous landlords but what different does his skin colour make?

Someone can make whatever accusations they want and they can sue for anything and everything as well. In Miami, discrimination is usually the first thing that is claimed in order to scare landlords and Association boards into approving them when they have underlying issues for the denial. (Bad credit, no credit history, no verifiable employment, no verifiable income, etc.) 
 
If you have a valid reason for not renting to the individual, i.e., the bad credit you mention, condo restrictions, etc, you don't have to rent to them. How likely is it someone is going to spend the retainer to sue when it's only a rental and they can move onto the next one? 
 
In order to avoid being accused of discrimination, what I normally recommend Boards do is have prospective tenants fill out a standard form, credit check form, perform background checks, and do not issue approval till meeting in person and the individual signs an acknowledgement that they have read the rules & regulations of the condominium and agrees to abide by them. Some condos even have pet owners bring in their dogs and interview in order to document pets and eliminate pet issues. 
 
Usually condominium documents contain a provision which releases the board from being liable for their decision and allows them to automatically disapprove if the prospective tenant would violate the condominium documents or breach a term contained therein.

First let me say I am not an attorney and this is not legal advise. There are many criteria you use to determine who qualifies to rent your space. As long as your decision is not based on a discriminatory issues like race, sex, religion, age, etc, I do not know where you can go wrong. Insurance companies use credit score in determining eligibility and pricing of policies.  
 
You can protect yourself against claims arising out of your operation if someone believes they were discriminated against and not rented or sold a property. Contact me if you want more details about this coverage.