This is the first of several posts I am planning with a focus on some of the fair housing issues that can arise for maintenance professionals.   As an industry we tend to sometimes overlook the maintenance side of the business when it comes to fair housing education, focusing instead on the leasing and front office folks.  Or at least that is my theory.  And my theory will now be put to the test, because here is what you may not know about MFI blogs.  Those of us who are regular MFI bloggers get to see our “stats” – including how many people read each of our posts.  I will be watching to see if my “maintenance” posts draw a lesser readership.  Hmmmm…

 

Perhaps I am being a tad pessimistic with the above blog title of “Who Cares”?  Maybe you do (well, actually you likely do care or you would not have read this far).  But if you don’t, let me try some persuasion here as to why perhaps you should.

 

Liability cannot be delegated!  (Maybe I won’t get readers at all if I say boring things like that.)  What does that mean?  It’s about accountability, and if a maintenance professional makes a fair housing mistake, you can be held accountable.  You can be held accountable if you are that maintenance employee (even if your manager told you what you were doing was OK or you did not understand that there was a fair housing issue). You can be held accountable if you supervise in any way, directly (as a maintenance supervisor) or indirectly (as a Regional VP, for example) that errant maintenance professional.  And if you are an owner in the business, you can be held accountable as well as you are the “principal” and your maintenance employee is your “agent”.  So, whoever you may be – gotcha!

 

And with accountability comes a price tag!   And the cost ain’t cheap.  It is not unusual for today’s fair housing cases to result in settlements or judgments in the tens or hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of (often uninsured) dollars.

 

In a perfect world you would care about maintenance and fair housing because compliance is simply the right thing to do.  But if that rationale does not resonate with you, then understand that you should care because maintenance violations in fair housing can cost YOU a lot of MONEY.