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Topic: Application Fees

Topic Author

Melissa Prins

Karma: 3
Posts: 10

Ok everyone. I need your help.

If an apartment community states the following:

"$200 deposit on approved credit. Application fee $35 per person, $40 per married couple."

Is this an FHA violation?

Posted 9 years 8 months ago

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Gabrielle Gonzalez

I would say no

Posted 9 years 8 months ago

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Brent Williams

Karma: 53
Posts: 1095

In this situation, you would be discriminating against a single person right? If that is the case, they are not a protected class so you would be ok. At least, that is my opinion of the situation.

Posted 9 years 8 months ago

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Not a violation, but probably a better solution would be to charge $35 per person as an Application Fee; then you would not have to be concerned about a fair housing violation. There are so many definitions of couples, married or not, that you could inadvertently set yourself up for a claim.

👍: Rose M

Posted 9 years 8 months ago

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Jeremy Lawson

Karma:
Posts: 5

Here is a follow up to this post. What if they are getting married the week before their move-in date so your LC charges them the "married couple" fee?

Personally not a fan of this verbiage. Very "old school".

Posted 9 years 8 months ago

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Topic Author

Melissa Prins

Karma: 3
Posts: 10

Brent I agree with you. Familial status does not cover marital status.

Posted 9 years 8 months ago

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Traci

Karma:
Posts: 1

We recently had the same question come up in our company. We decided to eliminate the discounted application fee for married couples since it could be discriminatory toward a same-sex couple. Even though federal fair housing law doesn't recognize the LGBT community as a protected class, HUD does, so we decided to go ahead and make the change pre-emptively.