Like other real estate businesses, you may be using ChatGPT, Bard, Bing, and other generative AI products, a.k.a. chatbots, for marketing purposes, such as developing advertising strategies, analyzing housing markets, and generating property listings, ads, social media posts, and other marketing content. Just recognize that for all their potential benefits, chatbots contain flaws that make them risky to use for marketing and advertising.

HB 2680 makes several changes to the procedure for tenant screening under ORS 90.295. These changes will be updated in the MHCO Forms.

Screening Notice. The law specifies that upon completion of an applicant’s screening by a screening company or consumer credit agency, the landlord must provide the prospective tenant with confirmation of the screening and a receipt for the screening service from the company and/or agency.

While vital to prevent overcrowding, occupancy standards may violate fair housing rules to the extent they have the effect of excluding families with children.

Spot the Discrimination Mistake

A tenant who shares a one-bedroom apartment with her husband tells the landlord she’s pregnant with the couple’s first child. Along with a smile and warm congratulations, the landlord offers her an eviction notice. Explanation: Once the baby is born, the couple will be over the community’s strict two-person-per-bedroom occupancy standard.

Question. When I try to trespass people off of park grounds, the cops refuse to do so based on the reasoning that they could be invited there by a resident, and they (the cops) have no way of knowing. I have dealt with this issue in numerous parks throughout Oregon, so I know I am not the only one. What can we do?

Adult supervision requirements are the leading source of pool-related family discrimination complaints. The safety rationale for such rules is clear. After all, swimming without adult supervision is the leading cause of drowning deaths for young children.

Family status is the fourth most commonly alleged ground of federal fair housing discrimination, trailing only disability, sex, and race. Many familial status complaints are the result of misguided safety rules involving children, particularly with regard to swimming pools.  

Question. I am looking for information dealing with fence liability between landlords and tenants, and between tenants and other tenants.

Our Park Management has not put up any fences. All fences were installed by current and past tenants. Generally, my questions relate to the duty to maintain these fences, liability from trees (hazard and otherwise), and repair issues and fences that were installed by past vs. current tenants.