Income Discrimination to not accept Section 8

[Noah Yonker]

Is anyone aware of this new law? 

I have a duplex unit up for rent right now and have a phrase in the description saying "Not set up for Section 8". I have seen that phrase commonly on other ads and have adapted it for my use. Thoughts behind that is that being approved for section 8 requires additional inspections and it generally brings in a tenants that may not respect the property as well as they aren't investing as much into their rent.

It looks like as of April 2021, a new law passed in 19 states and Washington DC that bars landlords from discriminating based on income level and this includes turning prospective tenants away based on their section 8 voucher.

Here are some articles I found on it:

https://www.nolo.com/legal-enc...

https://www.honigman.com/firm-...

What are your thoughts about this? How are you handling this new law? If this is a valid law, how does one get approved to accept Section 8?

Thanks!

Noah

[Greg M.]

This is asked a couple times a week here. 

You must accept a S8 voucher if the tenant has one. However, in almost all locations, you are not required to join the S8 program, you are not required to allow S8 inspections, and you are not required to fix non-safety issues with the unit that S8 identifies. 

So while you technically accept S8 vouchers if the tenant has one, the fact that you won't complete any S8 paperwork, won't allow inspections, and won't fix issues will 100% prevent a voucher being issued for your unit. If they magically do issue one, you must accept it, but they won't. Ever.