Columns

  This article is general in nature and is not intended as legal advice for any specific issue that might arise, since every situation is different. Always consult a knowledgeable landlord attorney with your specific legal issues.    A very recent court case highlights the ongoing importance of always conducting background checks on potential…

  While enforcing legitimate and nondiscriminatory rental and community policies is allowed, an Oregon case serves as a reminder how policies that look neutral on their face may still be illegal if they have the effect of excluding people the FHA protects.   Situation: A landlord rejects a black prospect with a credit score of 680 because her…

Exempting a disabled tenant’s service animal from a no-pets policy is a common kind of reasonable accommodation. But a Florida case deals with what a landlord can do when those accepted service animals create a nuisance for other tenants.

   Fees for “Additional Occupants” or “Extra Vehicles” may be problematic. Rental agreements sometimes contain a space for “extra vehicle fees” or “extra occupant fees.” These fees may be problematic considering the limitations found in ORS 90.302.

  A somewhat odd case out of California illustrates another important qualifier of the landlord’s duty to provide a requested accommodation. Situation: A tenant with “electromagnetic hypersensitivity” (EHS), which causes him to be physically and neurologically affected by radiofrequency emissions from cell phone equipment, asks the city to…

Publication of Submeter or Pro Rata Bills – Tenant Inspections. ORS 90.582 has very specific requirements for landlords who bill tenants for water using a pro rata billing method or for landlords who bill their tenants via submeter for water.   

The basic rule is that landlords must make reasonable accommodations to the point of undue hardship. Most resonable accommodations cases were decided on the basis of reasonableness, including an Arizona case posing the question of whether it’s reasonable to expect a landlord to introduce a whole new service or activity for a tenant with…

Nearly half of the cases this year address a landlord’s FHA duty to make reasonable accommodations. In most of these cases, the requested accommodation was purportedly necessary to afford a person with a disability an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling and public and common use areas. These cases offer insight into how far the duty to…

  Question: Is it permissible for a manager to pass on to tenants third-party billing fees for submetering?  

We’re all pretty familiar with what the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) says. The real challenge is figuring out what it actually means, as in real life. If you use Fair Housing Coach, it’s a good bet that you’re among the vast majority of landlords who are committed to principles of fair housing and try hard to comply with the rules. The problem…