The National Association of REALTORS® offers a wealth of information and resources regarding Fair Housing. Please visit nar.realtor/fair-housing to learn more.

Intermountain Fair Housing Council resources and links:

• Fair Housing FAQs
• Housing Discrimination Form
• Online Housing Discrimination Inquiry Form

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development resources and links:

• Fair Housing Rights and Obligations
• The Fair Housing Act
• Nondiscrimination in Housing and Community Development Programs
• Rights of Persons with Disabilities
• Sexual Harassment
• Discrimination in Mortgage Lending
• Rights of Families with Children
• Nondiscrimination in Advertising and Marketing
• Housing Discrimination and Persons Identifying as LGBTQ
• Rights of Persons with Limited English Proficiency
• Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing

Welcome to Fairhaven!

In this new, immersive online simulation training, members of the National Association of REALTORS® are put in the shoes of a client experiencing discrimination as they try to buy a home. As you work to close transactions, you will be presented with various scenarios depicting how discrimination gets in the way of closing the deal and must choose how to handle each scenario. You will receive feedback based on your answers as you advance through the simulation. The platform also includes powerful testimonials from buyers and discrimination testers, illustrating the effect of housing discrimination on people’s lives.

This training will take approximately two hours to complete and a certification of completion will be sent to you once you are finished. Participants who begin the simulation will be able to save their work and come back to complete it later. BRR members who complete this training will be recognized on our website.

Use this checklist from NAR to make sure you’re complying with the Fair Housing Act.

If you answer “no” to any of the questions below, consider adjusting your practices accordingly.

1. Do you have a written fair housing policy?
2. Do you publicize your commitment to fair housing in your office and in your advertising to clients?
3. Is fair housing training required in your company?
4. Have you developed procedures to provide equal professional service?
5. Do you review your offices’ compliance with your procedures regularly?
6. Do you have a corrective action policy?
7. Do you regularly review and modify your procedures to respond to changes in fair housing laws and to correct deficiencies in your office?
8. Do you have a way to gather feedback from customers and prospects?

Learn more at magazine.realtor/tool-kit/fair-housing/article/fair-housing-compliance-checklist, and review the fifth edition of the Fair Housing Handbook from NAR.

Excerpt from the fifth edition of the Fair Housing Handbook from the National Association of REALTORS®.

EQUAL PROFESSIONAL SERVICE MODEL

The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® has developed the Equal Professional Service Model to assist you in developing office procedures related to fair housing. This model should be  applied to all areas of marketing real estate. Equal professional service means consistently providing the same level of service to all your clients and customers. If you develop a consistent approach to greeting people, showing homes, qualifying prospects, getting listings, conducting open houses, recordkeeping and following up with clients and customers, you should have satisfied clients and a growing number of prospects. This section addresses the contact with a prospect who approaches a REALTOR® to find housing.

EQUAL SERVICE CHECKLIST
1. Develop policies or procedures concerning treatment of prospects and clients during their initial contact with your firm. For example:

• Hospitality (e.g., greeting, refreshments, etc.)
• Explaining the services offered by your firm relative to their needs
• Obtaining initial prospect information (e.g., name, address, telephone).
• Assignment to agents
• Explaining your commitment to fair housing laws
• Keeping records of these contacts
• Follow-up

2. Obtain objective information regarding the prospect or customer’s needs and wants. The Prospect Equal Service Report Form can assist with collecting this type of information. For example:

• Identify objective needs such as price, size, features and location
• Respond to subjective requests in a way to elicit objective criteria
• Determine whether the customer knows what they are financially qualified to buy

3. Let the customer set the limits in the housing search.

• Provide prospective buyers and renters with complete and accurate information on the availability of housing, alternative methods of financing and other facts affecting the choice of location that are lawful to provide (e.g., schools, employment, or transportation—not racial or religious demographics.)
• Allow the prospect to make the choices regarding communities or areas, features in a house or apartment, price, and financing options.

4. Offer a variety of choices regarding financing options, location, and types and styles of houses.
5. Require good recordkeeping for all prospects and inquiries regarding housing requested, housing options and alternatives offered, and service provided.
6. Establish a method of monitoring contacts and evaluation of service being provided.

One way you can be sure that you are treating all of your clients equally is by using a standard client intake form for buyers and sellers. REALTOR® Leigh Brown has shared sample intake forms on her website store, which you can use and adapt for your own purposes.

At Home With Diversity (AHWD) is an NAR certification program designed to present a picture of the changing face of the real estate industry. Since 1998, the At Home With Diversity program has prepared over 20,000 REALTORS® to work effectively with and within today’s increasingly diverse pool of homebuyers. Learn more about this certification on NAR’s website.

Ready to earn the certification? Take the course online through the Center for REALTOR® Development.

Bias Override: Overcoming Barriers to Fair Housing

In this video, you will watch an online workshop to help members avoid implicit bias in their daily business interactions. Video courtesy of the National Association of REALTORS®.

Unfortunately, homes that were were built before or during the 1950s may have racist or discriminatory language in the CC&Rs. While this language is illegal and discriminatory, it is not enforceable due to the Fair Housing Act. However, it is still very disturbing and should be addressed. If your clients discover their HOA has racist or discriminatory language in their CC&Rs, here are the steps they can take:

1. Review the CC&Rs. If a discriminatory CC&R is identified, address it with the HOA board of directors, the HOA attorney, and/or an attorney who specializes in fair housing law… and if you’re a homeowner planning to sell your home, your real estate agent;
2. Make sure your HOA attorney and the HOA board do not reaffirm the language;
3. Follow your HOA rules for amending the CC&Rs, keeping in mind it may require a majority vote of the subdivision’s homeowners;
4. If you can’t amend, adopt a resolution that the discriminatory provision is unenforceable. Make sure that every homeowner and the HOA have a copy of the resolution, and if the home is ever sold, that this resolution is provided to the buyers and all real estate agents involved in the transaction;
5. If the home is sold before an amendment is made or a resolution is adopted, talk to the title companies involved in the transaction, as they may be able to have the language stricken;
6. Check with Ada County Clerk’s Office about making changes to recorded documents.

Learn more about this issue by reading this guest blog post from Zoe Ann Olson, Executive Director of the Intermountain Fair Housing Council, Inc.

Excerpts from the Fair Housing Pocket Guide from the National Association of REALTORS®. Find more examples in this helpful guide.

Question: Could you call and tell me who you’re showing my house to?

Key Points:
• By law, all people may purchase property regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.
• Sellers have the right to know the identity of people who will be viewing their property.

Areas of Liability:
• A seller who wants to screen homebuyers may be intending to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.
• If you or the seller discriminate or attempt to discriminate in this way, you are both in direct violation of the federal fair housing laws.

Suggested Response:
• I’ll be showing your home to _____(use name).
• If the seller responds with concern about the national origin, religion, or race of the prospective buyers (or anyone from any other protected class), you should say: “Please remember that it is unlawful to screen or otherwise discriminate against homebuyers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin. If you are not willing to comply with the fair housing laws, I must remove myself from this relationship to avoid claims against me and my broker that we also engaged in unlawful conduct.”

Question: What color (religion, nationality, etc.) are the prospects?

Key Points:
• When this question is asked, either you have failed to communicate to the seller that a decision to sell cannot be based on the homebuyer’s race or the seller refuses to accept the consequences  of discriminating under the fair housing laws.
• This type of question should alert you to what may become very serious problems in marketing this seller’s property. Federal fair housing laws require that all property be offered to any qualified homebuyer without regard to race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.

Areas of Liability:
• When a seller who has listed with your firm asks you this question, it can cause significant problems and expose you and the cooperating brokers and sales associates to charges of
discrimination, unless it is immediately resolved.

Suggested Response:
• Please remember that it is unlawful to discriminate against homebuyers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin. Courts have held agents and brokers liable under the Fair Housing Act for simply answering the kind of question you are asking.

Question:  What is the racial composition of this neighborhood? Or, I only want to see white (Jewish, black, etc.) neighborhoods.

Key Points:
• Brokers and sales associates often work with homebuyers who have a preference for a neighborhood with a specific racial, religious, or ethnic character.
• Federal law prohibits you from marketing property based on the racial or ethnic makeup of the neighborhood.

Areas of Liability:
• You can expose yourself to charges of discrimination if you discourage or encourage a homebuyer to buy because of the racial, ethnic or religious composition of the neighborhood.

Actions to Take:
• If the homebuyer appears to restrict the home search on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin of a neighborhood’s residents, you should specifically note this on the homebuyer’s Equal Service Report Form.
• Never estimate or give an opinion on the racial, religious, or ethnic composition of the neighborhood.
• Refer homebuyers to sources of information such as the library or the local municipal offices, so they can research the questions themselves.

Suggested Response:
• Some courts have held brokers and agents in violation of the Fair Housing Act simply for answering that kind of question. If you really feel that such information is relevant, you should contact local authorities that may track census and other data.

Question: Are there high quality schools in the area?
Key Points:
• Many of the suits filed and cases that have gone to trial which allege “racial steering” involve comments by sales associates about schools.
• Professional testers often ask this kind of question to get a response that they can use to show that the sales associate attempted to influence the choice of housing.

Areas of Liability:
• If you make either complimentary or critical comments about schools based on the race of the homebuyer and the racial characteristics of the school population, you could be exposed to charges of racial discrimination.

Actions to Take:
• Provide the homebuyer only with reliable and authoritative information, such as student-teacher ratios, expenditures per pupil, percentage of students who go on to college, and the number of National Merit scholars from the recent graduating class.
• Refer the potential homebuyer to sources of information, such as the school or the school district’s main office.
• Maintain the same type of information for each school; never show favoritism for one school over another.
• Never attempt to influence a housing choice with either positive or negative general comments about the school or give an estimate or opinion of the racial, religious, or ethnic composition of the student body.

Suggested Response:
• To get the best answers to your questions, you should contact either the school or the school district’s main office.

Assistance Animals and Fair Housing

• Window to the Law: Fair Housing Assistance Animal Guidance
• Guidance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Assistance Animals and Fair Housing 4 CE online course