We talk to a lot of rental property owners in California who are confused about fair housing laws. Even experienced landlords can find themselves wondering what’s required and what’s prohibited. Fair housing laws aren’t always straightforward, and one of the reasons for this is that these laws are constantly evolving. New protections are added, court rulings upend the way certain laws were interpreted, and what was acceptable last year might now put you at risk of a violation.
Staying compliant as a rental property owner is more than just a legal formality, however. It’s an essential part of protecting your investment and your reputation. A single fair housing mistake could cost thousands in penalties and damage your credibility as a landlord. You don’t want those fines. You don’t want those investigations. You definitely don’t want to be known as the landlord who violated a fair housing law.
Both California and federal fair housing laws are designed to ensure that everyone has equal access to housing. And as
professional property managers in California, we make it our mission to stay ahead of the new legislation and the effective dates of recently passed laws. Our team goes beyond state-required training, continuously sharpening our understanding of fair housing regulations and best practices. This benefits you, your tenants, and the broader community.
If these laws seem complicated, you’re not alone. We are here to clarify what you need to know and to remind you that following fair housing laws is an important part of creating a diverse and inclusive community.
Whether you're navigating a tricky situation or just want to stay informed, local property management experts like us can answer your questions and provide support.
Fair housing laws start with protected classes. The federal Fair Housing Act, which has been around since 1968, establishes seven protected classes, and the state list is much longer.
| Federal Fair Housing Protected Classes | State Fair Housing Protected Classes |
|---|---|
| Federal laws are administered and enforced by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). They identify the following protected classes: | As we mentioned, California goes even further. There are far more protected classes under state fair housing laws than federal. When we’re talking about your fair housing requirements in California, you have all of those seven classes we mentioned above plus: |
| - Race | - Criminal history (non-relevant convictions) |
| - Color | - Primary language |
| - Religion | - Ancestry |
| - Sex (updated language includes gender identity and sexual orientation here) | - Immigration status |
| - Disability | - Marital status |
| - National origin | - Pregnancy |
| - Political affiliation | |
| - Age | |
| - Gender identity and gender expression | |
| - Medical condition | |
| - Genetic information | |
| - Military or veteran status | |
| - Source of income |
Rental property owners and property managers must be cautious not to discriminate, consciously or unconsciously, against individuals belonging to these classes. The greatest dangers, which we’ll discuss in detail, come when you’re marketing properties, choosing tenants, setting rental terms, granting privileges, or applying services and rules.
Protect yourself by
establishing an objective and consistent process. Keep all of your rental criteria in writing and easily accessible so that tenants know what you’re looking for before they even apply.
You may not realize you’re violating fair housing laws. For example, let’s say two tenants pay rent late one month. If you waive a late fee for one tenant but not another, you could be accused of discriminating against the tenant who had to pay the late fee. How can you prove that you’re not? Consistency and documentation is critical.
In California, understanding the legal protections afforded to individuals with disabilities is one of the major fair housing areas that’s getting a lot of attention. You cannot confuse a pet with a service animal.
Service animals and emotional support animals (ESAs) are not pets. They are accommodations and supports for individuals with physical, emotional, or psychological disabilities. There’s sometimes confusion around whether landlords must allow them, what documentation is required, and how these animals intersect with “no-pet” policies.
You have to allow service animals and companion animals (ESAs being the most common types of companion animals). Each request for a service animal and an emotional support animal request must be considered on a case-by-case basis, the same way you would consider any other requests for reasonable accommodation.
Let’s start with some quick definitions and an understanding of how they’re the same.
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, a service animal is a dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. An emotional support animal is a companion for a person who needs the emotional support that such an animal can provide.
They’re the same because the law seems them as accommodations. You have to treat these animals the same way you would treat a tenant requesting a wheelchair ramp or grab bars in the shower or a dedicated parking space outside of an apartment building.
You have to allow them, and you cannot treat them as pets.
We know they’re the same in that they’re protected by two important federal laws and they cannot be treated as pets. But, how are service animals and emotional support animals different?
| Animal Types |
| One major difference between the two is this: emotional support animals can be anything. They can be dogs or cats or rabbits or hamsters. They can be guinea pigs or snakes. Service animals, however, are almost always dogs. Miniature horses can also qualify as a service animal, but only under very specific circumstances. They can be assigned a task such as pulling a wheelchair, providing stability, and helping people get up after a fall. However, they need a lot of space, so they would not work out in most rental settings. |
| Training and Tasks |
| Service animals have been exclusively trained to do specific work. They have a job, and it’s a job that helps someone with physical, mental, or emotional disabilities. The work or task an animal has been trained to provide is always directly related to the person’s disability. Seeing Eye Dogs will guide people who are blind, for example. A hearing dog will help people who are deaf and especially prone to potential dangers. Some service dogs are trained to protect someone who is having a seizure. People with a mental illness may rely on their service animal to take prescribed medications at specific times. They might serve as a coping mechanism to someone with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder who is having a panic attack. The duties performed by a service animal will depend on the person and the disability. |
Emotional support or companion animals, however, do not get trained in a specific task. Their function is to provide comfort or emotional support to someone with a disability, and while they do not qualify as service animals under federal law, they are still protected. This Fair Housing Act has a broader definition of what qualifies as an “assistance animal,” and emotional support animals are included in that definition. Assistance animals can serve different roles and may be an emotional support animal, companion animal, or therapy animal.
It’s not easy to brazenly ask someone about their disability, so the conversation you have with tenants or applicants might feel uncomfortable. You don’t want to violate fair housing laws by asking about their physical and mental health, and people are entitled to their privacy.
But, you also want to protect your property. You want to avoid being duped by someone who is potentially trying to make a pet look like a service animal.
As long as you are respectful and speaking within the confines of the law, you should feel free to ask a few elemental questions.
Legally, landlords can ask tenants if their service and/or emotional support animal is necessary for them to use and enjoy the housing unit that they’ve applied for or that they’re currently living in. You cannot ask a tenant who needs a service animal for documentation that they need the animal (it’s usually obvious, and service animals are identified as such), but you can ask for documentation from a professional in the medical field when a tenant wants to move in with an emotional support animal. Recent laws in California now require that the medical professional providing that documentation has recently seen the tenant in-person.
Where do things generally go wrong?
We have already covered one of the major problem areas: service and support animals.
Now, let’s talk about some specific areas where property owners struggle. While attention to fair housing is required in all of your leasing, marketing, screening, and management practices, we’ve found that it can be especially easy to make a mistake when you’re advertising your rental home and screening your tenants.
Here are the problems that pop up and some best practices to keep you out of trouble.
The words and phrases you use in your rental property advertisements online should never separate one group of tenants from another. Don’t show preferences. Don’t call out types of people who may or may not enjoy living in the property. Instead, focus on the property attributes that would appeal to everyone in the current tenant pool. Avoid saying your studio apartment would be "great for singles." Don’t say you’re “looking for Christian tenants who want to live close to church.” Marketing should focus on your property’s features, such as large bedrooms, updated kitchens, or fenced yards. Don’t discuss the type of tenant who might appreciate a home. Assumptions can lead you into a fair housing grey area.
Screening has to be fair, objective, and consistent. Otherwise, you could be accused of denying a tenant based on a protected class. It’s easier than you may think to choose a tenant impartially, especially if you have good technology and a set of standard rental criteria. Make sure you’re holding every applicant to the same standards. As California property managers, we have the necessary screening software and technology to ensure that most of our background checking is automated and therefore completely objective. Before you even start screening, establish qualifying rental criteria and provide that criteria to potential tenants before they apply for your property. Be aware of the new laws that require you to screen applications in the order in which they were received. If you’re collecting an application fee, you must approve the first application that meets your standards. There’s no option to screen a bunch of tenants and then pick one.
As a California landlord, you must know that source of income is one of those protected classes under state fair housing laws. You cannot qualify or disqualify an applicant based on how they earn their money. This means that you cannot refuse an application from a tenant with Section 8 benefits. As long as they meet your qualifying rental criteria,
you have to consider them because those housing benefits can be considered income.
Disparate impact refers to practices that may appear neutral on the surface but result in a discriminatory effect on protected groups under fair housing laws. In California, landlords must be especially cautious when using criminal background checks to screen potential tenants. Although landlords have the right to ensure the safety of their property and other tenants, blanket policies that exclude applicants based on any criminal history can disproportionately affect certain racial or ethnic groups, potentially violating the federal Fair Housing Act and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. To avoid disparate impact liability, landlords should ensure their screening policies are narrowly tailored, considering factors like the nature and age of the offense and whether it is relevant to tenancy, rather than applying broad exclusions that may unfairly discriminate against protected classes. Some communities in California won’t allow you to run a criminal background check until the tenant is approved.
We discussed service and support animals, and you know that the law sees those animals as accommodations rather than pets. Disability law is one of the fastest growing and most disputed areas of fair housing. Because you cannot discriminate against any tenants based on a physical, emotional, or intellectual disability, you may have to accommodate those tenants in ways that require modifications to your property or policies.
You may have a tenant who needs modifications in order to comfortably live in your property. The purpose of these accommodations or modifications is to ensure your tenant with a disability can use your property in the same way as a tenant without such disabilities. So, you may be asked to install a wheelchair ramp outside of the front door, or grab bars in the shower. It might mean a dedicated parking space or extra handrails.
Who pays for the accommodations? The resident can be required to pay for them, but as the property owner, you must provide them. Landlords must allow and may be required to make reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. This includes modifications to existing premises, as long as it does not create undue financial and administrative burdens.
Now that we’ve covered some of the danger zones, let’s talk about compliance.
The first step to compliance is understanding the law. Here are some of the ways you can stay compliant with fair housing laws in throughout California:
| Know the Laws | Review Your Lease and Your Policies | Document Everything |
|---|---|---|
| Stay up to date on all fair housing laws. If you do not have the time, resources, or interest in staying up to date on all the latest laws and court rulings, you’ll want to make sure you’re working with a property manager. There’s just too much risk involved in violating a law | Develop non-discriminatory screening processes for tenants and document all of your screening criteria. Provide that criteria to anyone who schedules a showing and considers applying. | Keep up-to-date records of all tenant correspondence and applications. Digital and paper files are best. |
When you understand and follow all of the state and federal laws, renting out your California property is less stressful and risky. We know that it can be tricky to navigate the wide range of laws that come with renting out a property, and we’re here to help. Please don’t hesitate to contact us at Niguel Point Properties. We’d be happy to answer questions or help you manage your risk.
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