BY Marcia L. Russell
Special to Realty/Builder Connection
Today, most complaints involving fair housing advertising are based on blatant violations of the Fair Housing Act, such as ads seeking “no children” or “adults only.” However, with the increased scrutiny of real estate advertising by fair housing organizations, testers, and individual home seekers, many real estate practitioners are concerned about being charged with housing bias based on the wording in their advertisements.
Seemingly harmless words may trigger a complaint. The key to composing advertising that is in compliance with the Fair Housing Act is to describe the property, not the seller, landlord, neighbors, or “appropriate” buyers or renters.
Creating advertising that is sensitive to the protected classes under the Fair Housing Act is not as difficult as it may seem. Simply review the wording in the ad to see if anyone would feel excluded by what is being said. Keep in mind that if a person wouldn’t pick up the phone to respond to the ad because of the exclusionary wording, there could be a complaint.
For example, the term “Christian handyman” in an ad for rental housing violated Wisconsin law by expressing illegal preferences on the basis of both sex and religion.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Advertising Guidelines categorize discriminatory advertising into three groups:
• Advertising that contains words, phrases, symbols, or visual aids that indicate a discriminatory preference or limitation.
• Advertising that selectively uses media, human models, logos, and locations to indicate an illegal preference or limitation.
• Various types of discriminatory advertising practices condemned by the Fair Housing Act.
The HUD regulations prohibit the use of catchwords, phrases, symbols, photographs and illustrations that convey dwellings are available or not available to a particular group of persons because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.
The words, phrases, and symbols in the following list typify those most often used in residential real estate advertising to convey either overt or tacit discriminatory preferences or limitations:
• Words descriptive of dwelling, landlord, and tenants, such as “white private home,” “colored home,” “Jewish home,” “Hispanic residence” or “adult building.”
Words indicative of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin.
The second general category of unlawful advertising identified in the HUD regulations involves the selective use of content or media based on race or other prohibited basis. For example, the selective use of human models in advertisements may have a discriminatory impact.
Other examples of this type of discriminatory advertising include:
• Selective geographic advertisements. This may involve the strategic placement of billboards; brochure advertisements distributed within a limited geographic area by hand or in the mail; advertising in particular geographic coverage editions of major metropolitan newspapers or in newspapers of limited circulation that are mainly advertising vehicles for reaching a particular segment of the community; or displays or announcements available only in selected sales offices.
• Selective use of equal opportunity slogan or logo. This may involve placing the equal opportunity slogan or logo in advertising reaching some geographic areas but not others, or with respect to some properties but not others.
• Selective use of human models. This regulation covers selective advertising based not only on race but on all of the Fair Housing Act’s prohibited bases of discrimination, including sex, handicap, and familial status. The regulations require that when human models are used in display advertising, the models should be clearly definable as reasonably representing majority and minority groups, both sexes, and, when appropriate, families with children. In addition, models should portray persons in an equal social setting and indicate to the general public that the housing is open to all persons, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.
The HUD regulations prohibit the practice of refusing to publish advertisements for the sale or rental of dwellings because of race or other prohibited bases. Such advertisements may not be subject to different charges or terms.