Advertising...For New Tenants...Do You Specifying Specific Criteria?

@Greg , thank you for your post!

We greatly appreciate it!

Great discussion. I learned much. Here’s a few more thoughts relating to Fair Housing/ Illegal Discrimination:

  1. You can discriminate against people on everything but the illegal traits (age, family status, sex, religion, country of origin
);

  2. The new Supreme Court ruling in the Texas Dept of Housing case concluded that legal discrimination that results in disproportionate representation in your park of certain racial groups equals illegal discrimination. Thus, having a rule that you won’t take any felons can leave you open to an illegal discrimination/fair housing lawsuit if such a rule results in fewer from any minority residing in your park (thus you have to racially discriminate in favor of some so you don’t racially discriminate - go figure that out). The bottom line is if you have a “no felony” guideline, it must be subject to some further examination. For example, a felony theft charge from ten years ago with a tenant that has no problems since, is married, and has a good job history must be treated different than a felony sexual assault where the guy was released from prison two months ago;

  3. Post your non-discrimination company rules on your websites and applications. Make sure anyone you employee who screens tenants knows the rules and has signed off saying they know the rules. If the government ever gets involved in your operations, they are a like a bad relative that moved in and won’t move out; and

  4. If you only advertise for tenants in a medium that attracts only a certain subgroup of tenants (ex. working Hispanic families via a Spanish language newspaper) and your park tenany reflects that, and you live in an area with predominately black residents, you’re subject to a Fair Housing complaint.

It’s important to do all this correctly as Park General Liability insurance excludes coverage for discrimination claims. “EPLI with 3rd party” coverage will cover tenant and employee discrimation claims, but that coverage generally costs an additional $1,500/year for most park owners.

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@KurtKelley , thank you so very much for all your wisdom and knowledge!

We so greatly appreciate it!

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Kurt,
Thanks as always. We have one exclusion criteria - can you tell us if this will be a problem:
– No people riding their dogs in a motorcycle side car - all riders must show proof of license
:wink:

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ok iv’e been looking at MHP’S and alot of them have some POH’S in them. what would peoples inputs be to sell them to the tenant and let them be responsible for all of the upkeep. it seem’s that people are more responsible when they own something vs it’s the landlords problems and or they just outright thrash the place!!! alot of pepole told me not to buy a park with POH’S in them or you’ll be getting calls all hours of the day and night

I think that’s smart - a guy on a motorcycle with dog in a side car sounds pretty shady to me.