Rent rise discimination

[Adam P]

Are there any laws defining rent rise discrimination for non-protected classes?

I am growing rapidly, and trying to develop lease renewal strategy.  As all landlords learn after a while, not all tenants are created equal.  Some pay rent early every month, rarely complain, and are very low maintenance.   Others pay on the 5th every month, and call to complain about anything they perceive to be wrong about an apartment.

If I am doing renewals, are there any laws stopping me pricing rents around the maintenance cost of a tenant?   Many tenants are not bad enough to kick out or not renew on, but still cost me more than other tenants.  I would prefer to ultimately build the business around extracting maximum rent from higher maintenance tenants, and less rent from low maintenance tenants within the same buildings.

At this stage, say I have 2 tenants that started renting at $1000 on a 12 month lease.  At renewal time, if I offer 1 tenant a renewal at $990 per month, since to me they are pure profit, but offer the other tenant a 12 month lease at $1100 per month, to cover the $100 of my time I waste on them, could I be sued for discrimination?

[JD Martin]

Well, you can always be sued for anything, at any time. So there's no such thing as no risk. Now, whether that suit will be successful is another story.

I would say this: you are generally free to set rent however you want. However, if a determined tenant could display that you were charging them more rent for a duplicate property, for no justifiable business reason (rents went up after lease expiration, building taxes, etc), than another tenant, they could probably come up with a protected class reason that you were violating - race, age, family status, etc, and then you would be forced to use your "pain in the ***" logic in court to defend the differential.

So I would say you should probably not proceed down that road, and if you do, I would probably delete this thread.