You might think that knowing how to write your rental ad can simply be the difference between standing out from the competition and dealing with a longer vacancy, but did you know that saying the wrong things could lead to legal hot water? Including certain phrases or words can make your listing discriminatory and illegal. Dive into all you need to know about what to do (and what not to do) when crafting your rental ad in this edition of “Ask a Landlord” with Rentec Direct’s Kaycee Miller.
Writing a rental ad might seem simple—but did you know certain words or phrases could be illegal? In this video, Kaycee Miller from Rentec Direct shares 5 things you should NEVER include in a rental listing if you want to stay compliant with federal and state fair housing laws.
Learn About:
- What not to say about families, employment, criminal background, and more
- Understand protected classes at the federal and state levels
- Avoid phrases that could be considered discriminatory in rental ads
Whether you’re a new landlord or an experienced property manager, this is essential information to protect your business and treat all applicants fairly
5 Things to Never Say in a Rental Ad | Legal Tips for Landlords – Watch the Video
5 Things to Never Say in a Rental Ad | Legal Tips for Landlords – Video Transcript
What NOT to Include in a Rental Ad:
Are you looking for someone new for your rental property?
Maybe it’s the end of a lease. Maybe you got that intent to vacate notice from a tenant. Maybe you just got your first investment property and you’re looking for that qualified tenant to be your first renter as you start your real estate investing career.
Regardless, it really comes down to that rental ad and what you’re going to put in the ad to highlight the property, attract the right tenants, and ensure you are putting your best foot forward when it comes to finding your next occupant.
The Importance of a Rental Ad
Now, when it comes to that rental ad, there are certainly things that you want to showcase—number of bedrooms, bathrooms, property amenities. You’ll want to talk about what’s included with the property and maybe highlight local area attractions that really make that property stand out.
But it’s also equally important to make sure that you’re leaving things out of that rental ad that might be considered illegal or discriminatory or violate those federal fair housing laws that are so important that you understand as a housing provider.
My name is Kaycee Miller, I work for Rentec Direct property management software. I’m also a landlord, a real estate investor, and I’ve been in the industry for over a decade, writing about all sorts of landlord-related topics.
Avoid Discrimination in a Rental Ad
Today, I’m going to talk about the five things that can be considered illegal if you put them in your rental ads. I think it is super important to never, ever put the following in your rental ads because they can be considered illegal and violate the Federal Fair Housing Act.
Protected Classes under the Fair Housing Act:
- Race or color
- Religion
- Sex
- National Origin
- Familial Status
- Disability
Some states have additional protected classes, beyond those mentioned in the Fair Housing Act. For example, marital status is a protected class in several states like Oregon and California.
State Fair Housing Laws
Beyond the Fair Housing Act, renters have additional protections enacted by state laws that expand on their protected classes. Examples of protected classes on the state level include marital status, age, source of income, sexual orientation, gender identity, and arrest records.
It’s extremely important that you understand your state and local laws and uphold them in your rental business in addition to your federal laws. These state fair housing laws provide additional guidance on what can be considered illegal to mention in a rental ad.
What Not to Say in a Rental Ad
1 – Do not mention families in your rental ad
So, some of the things that I think are one of the first things that someone might not think about is talking about families, or kids, or schools. You cannot even strike up a conversation with a rental applicant or a tenant lead, saying something like, “Oh, do you have any kids?” because familial status is a protected class.
In your rental ad, you can’t say the property is, “close to schools, close to a park, great for families!” You can say that it’s close to a school or it’s close to a park. But you cannot put in the ad “great for families” because families are part of the protected classes of familial status.
2 – Do not mention occupancy limits in your rental ad
Another thing you can’t put in a rental ad is occupants—kind of random occupancy limits—like “perfect for a single person,” “good for two people only,” because again, that leads toward that fine line of: are you implying that someone’s family size wouldn’t fit in this? In a lot of cases, children are protected when it comes to rental housing and you can’t talk about familial status and knowing how many kids are in a family.
So that’s why you can’t say “single occupant only” or “good for two people.” You can adhere to your local occupancy ordinances, so that’s something to consider. But usually those are more than one or two people. Make sure you know what those occupancy ordinances are for where your house is located, and then understand also what your specific local laws and state laws say about how to treat children when it comes to rental housing.
There are some cases where you can ask all occupants under 18 to write their names out, but you don’t have to do background checks on them. And then there are other states where you can’t even ask how many occupants under 18 are going to be at the property. It really depends on where you live.
But in general, on a rental ad, you should never put what the occupancy limits are if they make it seem like you are limiting the number of children or implying that it’s not suitable for families.
3 – Do not mention employment requirements in your rental ad
Another thing that you need to avoid in your rental ads is talking about employment requirements. Source of income is often a protected class for housing. So you can’t say “must be employed,” “must be full-time employed,” because someone could be getting income from sources other than full-time employment. They could be getting disability payments, child support payments, alimony payments, settlements from different areas, trust fund payouts—there are all different ways that someone can collect income in order to cover the rent or meet the housing requirements and those obligations.
It’s important that you not state in your rental ad “must be employed.” They’ve even had recent laws in place where you can’t give preference to people who work at certain properties—like, “Oh, you get a discount if you’re a Microsoft employee.” That was definitely a thing that happened in Seattle, but it’s illegal now because that is showing preference to someone who’s employed, preference to someone who might not have the opportunity to work at a certain corporation. It’s making it a little unfair for people who might not have those same opportunities.
4 – Do not mention kids in your rental ad
Another thing that you can’t say in a rental ad is “no children.” That goes back to that familial status. A lot of the ones that I think are the most likely to not even think about being a violation are these ones that relate to familial status because it’s so common to have these conversations with people—like, “Do you have any kids?” or “Where do they go to school?” That’s just normal conversation.
But you need to remember: when you’re a housing provider, you need to have these walls up like, “I am in my housing provider mode. I can’t talk about familial status. I can’t talk about kids.” You need to just be friendly and polite, provide great customer service to these potential rental applicants, but always adhere to federal and local housing laws.
So you can’t say stuff like “no children” in a rental ad.
5 – Do not mention blanket statements about clean criminal background
Another one that is important to remember for protecting some of these classes and making sure that you’re not discriminatory in your rental marketing is saying something like “clean criminal background required.” That can be a little ambiguous in housing.
Criminal convictions are allowed to be considered in a background screening, but it has to prove that they could be dangerous to the property—maybe a violent crime, property damage crime, arson—and they need to be actual criminal convictions, not arrest records, for example.
So stating in a rental ad “clean criminal background required,” someone could interpret that as, “Oh, well, I’ve been arrested, and so my criminal background is not clean. Therefore, I can’t even apply to this.” That would be considered discriminatory under federal fair housing laws, which make it so you can’t use arrest records for tenant screening—you have to use criminal convictions.
In fact, there are even some new local and state-level laws being proposed that don’t even want people to consider criminal background or convictions when doing tenant screening because they want everyone to have a fair chance at housing.
Additional Tips for Fair Housing Compliance Beyond the Rental Ad
So that’s something to consider in terms of what you’re going to put in your rental ads. You know, you can’t say things that violate the Federal Fair Housing Act. That includes a lot of protected classes like race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, and disability.
Some states even have additional protected classes, like marital status might be a protected class in your state or in your local ordinances. The rental ad is the place where you need to make sure that you’re not violating any of those.
Rental Ads, Emails, Texts, and In-person Conversations
During your tenant search process—even in conversations, emails, texts, face-to-face conversation, verbal conversations—you can’t say anything that could potentially show that you are implying or encouraging or preferring someone who might not fit into your preferences that are in these protected classes.
So that’s what I’m talking about—implying, asking questions about kids or familial status, asking questions about national origin. That could be something like, “Oh, I love your accent, where are you from?” That type of question could be considered discriminatory because you are inquiring about someone’s national origin.
A Housing Provider’s Responsibility
As housing providers, we have a big responsibility to make sure we uphold our fair housing laws and all of our local, state, and federal laws that pertain to rental housing.
Owning rental property and managing rental property is an exciting process and job because we are providing one of those basic needs to renters throughout our communities. But it’s also important that we do our best to protect those renters’ rights and uphold our responsibility as housing providers.
My name is Kaycee Miller. I work for Rentec Direct property management software. You can find all sorts of tips about how to be a great landlord, how to be a good renter, property management advice, and more information on landlord-tenant laws on the Rentec Direct Blog.
Come and visit me there and make sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube for more great videos on being a rental housing provider.