BBG Partner, Jay B. Solomon, was recently quoted by Law360 in the article, “Section 8 Tenants are Using New Laws to Fight Housing Bias.” In the article, Jay provided valuable insight on the way that some tenant advocacy groups attempt to gauge property owners’ compliance with antidiscrimination laws by targeting real estate brokers which are not the owner’s agents, and subsequently, how landlords are taking issue with their tactics, despite the worthy goals of those organizations. One of these disputed tactics is the use of testers to cold-call real estate brokers, which list apartments without the landlord’s knowledge, and then sue the landlord based on what the broker said to the tester.
“They’re essentially cold-calling any broker that may have listed a property. But these brokers may have gotten the listing from a multiple listing source or perhaps some sort of broad-based email blast,” Solomon explained. “And what we’ve found is very often these brokers don’t represent the ownership, they actually represent the tenants.”
Jay noted in the article that with the publicity of these cases, there is “a beneficial effect on the overall housing community because it will educate both ownership and brokers of their obligations under the law and the prohibitions against discriminating based upon source of income.” However, the net cast by some advocacy groups is too wide, and the lawsuits often include innocent landlords.
To read the full article, click here: https://www.law360.com/articles/1701942/section-8-tenants-are-using-new-laws-to-fight-housing-bias.