Are sex offenders a protective class

[Gina Nicolas]

Good evening all,

I have a 2 units property that is managed by a property management company. I have received  a text from my 1st unit tenant that a sex offender is living in the 2nd unit. First floor tenant is panicking because of his 14 years old son living with him. I have contacted my property management company and I was told that sex offenders are a protective class and they cannot get rid of him just because he is a sex offender. I am a  little confused because, I thought that sex offenders ARE NOT a protective class. Also if they are, can I get sued if anything happens to first tenant's son. Has anyone dealt with that situation. All input are welcome

[Adam Martin]

You can go at this 2 ways, If this offender is not on the lease which is highly possible since they have trouble finding housing you would want to notify the tenant of the breach and give them a reasonable amount of time to move before an eviction for violating lease terms on extended guests.  If your other tenant leaves it will be much harder to find a tenant who is willing to share a building with a registered offender as people search that before moving and I’m assuming you have a duty to warn them.  If you want to let them stay you will probably loose your other tenant.  You could potentially profit from this and increase rents on the existing tenant if they are m2m or when the lease is up and they would probably pay due to how hard it is to find housing.  If you were willing to accept people with convictions you could probably get above mkt rents for the second unit and you would probably have long term tenants in both.  For option 2 though prepare for neighbors to hate you and possibly try to hold you responsible for damages if something happens.  I personally would go for the first option since that is not something I would want to introduce to the neighborhood where I invest and not the type of people I want to associate and to business with.  I know some people get falsely accused as mentioned earlier or there is just a small age gap  and for those people I feel bad for them but I’m not going to try to sort through their stories that was what the judge was for.