Housing Discrimination (Fair Housing Act)

The federal law making it unlawful to refuse housing, or set different terms, because of who someone is.

Looking for a lawyer rather than a definition? Skip to the state-by-state list of Discrimination law firms.

What it means

The Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful to refuse to rent or sell housing, to set different terms or conditions, to advertise a preference, or to falsely represent that housing is unavailable, because of a protected characteristic. The characteristics protected federally are race, color, religion, sex, familial status - broadly, having children in the household - national origin, and disability. Many states and cities protect further characteristics, and where they do, the local law adds to the federal floor rather than replacing it.

Disability is treated differently from the others, and this is the part most often not known. A housing provider must make reasonable accommodations - changes to rules, policies or services, such as permitting an assistance animal where a no-pets rule applies - and must permit reasonable modifications, meaning physical changes to the unit, generally at the tenant's expense. These are affirmative duties: doing nothing is not neutrality, it is a potential violation.

Discrimination in these cases is rarely explicit. It is far more often established by circumstance: the unit that becomes unavailable on the phone and available to a different caller, the different deposit, the rule applied to one family and not another. That is why testing evidence and contemporaneous records carry so much weight.

Two enforcement routes exist and they run in parallel: an administrative complaint to HUD or a substantially equivalent state or local agency, which investigates at no cost to the complainant, and a private civil action in court. Each has its own filing deadline set by the statute; this page states neither, and both are shorter than people assume.

Where this comes from

When people hire a lawyer for this

The deadlines are the reason not to wait, and they differ between the administrative and the court route, so the choice is worth making deliberately rather than by default. The administrative route costs the complainant nothing to pursue, which makes it the practical option for most people. Local fair housing organizations and legal aid programs handle these cases and can also arrange testing - the evidence that most reliably converts a suspicion into a provable claim. Keep the advertisement, the messages and a dated note of what was said and by whom.

Worried about the cost? A lawyer can be hired for one part of a case only (limited-scope representation), may be paid from what a claim recovers (contingency fee), or may be free through a pro bono program or legal aid; a court can also waive its own filing fees.

Find Discrimination law firms in your state

Choose your state to see Discrimination law firms in the city where we list the most; your city may be under “other cities”, A to Z. A state marked “Civil & Human Rights” has no Discrimination listing yet and opens the broader page.

• Alabama (Birmingham)
  +1 other city

  • Montgomery
• Alaska (Anchorage)
• Arizona (Chandler)
  +6 other cities

  • Gilbert
  • Glendale
  • Mesa
  • Phoenix
  • Scottsdale
  • Tucson
• Arkansas (Little Rock)
• California (Anaheim)
  +19 other cities

  • Bakersfield
  • Chula Vista
  • Fontana
  • Fremont
  • Irvine
  • Long Beach
  • Riverside
  • Sacramento
  • San Bernardino
  • San Diego
  • San Francisco
  • Santa Ana
  • and 7 more with fewer listed firms
• Colorado (Aurora)
  +2 other cities

  • Colorado Springs
  • Denver
• Connecticut (Bridgeport)
• Delaware (Wilmington)
• District of Columbia (Washington)
• Florida (Hialeah)
  +5 other cities

  • Jacksonville
  • Miami
  • Orlando
  • St Petersburg
  • Tampa
• Georgia (Atlanta)
• Hawaii (Honolulu)
• Idaho (Boise)
• Illinois (Chicago)
• Indiana (Fort Wayne)
  +1 other city

  • Indianapolis
• Iowa (Des Moines)
• Kansas (Kansas City)
• Kentucky (Lexington)
  +1 other city

  • Louisville
• Louisiana (Baton Rouge)
  +2 other cities

  • New Orleans
  • Shreveport
• Maine (Portland)
• Maryland (Baltimore)
• Massachusetts (Boston)
• Michigan (Detroit)
• Minnesota (Minneapolis)
  +1 other city

  • Saint Paul
• Mississippi (Jackson)
• Missouri (Kansas City)
  +1 other city

  • St. Louis
• Montana (Billings)
• Nebraska (Lincoln)
  +1 other city

  • Omaha
• Nevada (Henderson)
  +2 other cities

  • Las Vegas
  • North Las Vegas
• New Hampshire (Manchester)
• New Jersey (Newark)
  +1 other city

  • Jersey City
• New Mexico (Albuquerque)
• New York (Buffalo)
  +2 other cities

  • New York City
  • Rochester
• North Carolina (Charlotte)
  +5 other cities

  • Durham
  • Fayetteville
  • Greensboro
  • Raleigh
  • Winston-Salem
• North Dakota (Fargo)
• Ohio (Cincinnati)
  +3 other cities

  • Cleveland
  • Columbus
  • Toledo
• Oklahoma (Oklahoma City)
  +1 other city

  • Tulsa
• Oregon (Portland)
• Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)
  +1 other city

  • Pittsburgh
• Rhode Island (Providence)
• South Carolina (Columbia)
• South Dakota (Sioux Falls, Civil & Human Rights)
• Tennessee (Memphis)
  +1 other city

  • Nashville
• Texas (Arlington)
  +12 other cities

  • Austin
  • Corpus Christi
  • Dallas
  • El Paso
  • Fort Worth
  • Garland
  • Houston
  • Irving
  • Laredo
  • Lubbock
  • Plano
  • San Antonio
• Utah (Salt Lake City)
• Vermont (Burlington)
• Virginia (Chesapeake)
  +3 other cities

  • Norfolk
  • Richmond
  • Virginia Beach
• Washington (Seattle)
  +2 other cities

  • Spokane
  • Tacoma
• West Virginia (Charleston)
• Wisconsin (Madison)
  +1 other city

  • Milwaukee
• Wyoming (Cheyenne)

Related terms

Entries on the same subject:

• Disparate ImpactDiscrimination without a discriminatory intent - a neutral rule, test or practice that falls much harder on a protected group and cannot be justified by business necessity - and the statutes under which that theory is and is not available.
• Filing a Discrimination Charge (EEOC)The administrative step that must come before almost any federal employment-discrimination lawsuit - a charge filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or a state agency within a short statutory window, followed by a right-to-sue letter that starts the next clock.
• Reasonable AccommodationA change to a job, workplace or housing rule that lets a person with a disability participate equally - required unless it imposes undue hardship.
• Retaliation for Protected ActivityThe separate legal wrong of punishing a person for complaining about discrimination, reporting a violation, taking protected leave or helping in an investigation - a claim that often succeeds where the underlying complaint would not.

Other entries in the same area of law, each written from the same primary sources.

• ADA Public Accommodations (Title III)The part of the Americans with Disabilities Act that applies to businesses open to the public - shops, restaurants, hotels, clinics, theaters, and in many courts their websites - requiring access, policy changes and communication aids, with the cost limits that shape what can be demanded.
• Excessive ForceThe constitutional limit on how much force police may use in a stop, an arrest or a search - judged by what a reasonable officer would have done in the moment, and the reason body-camera footage decides more of these cases than testimony does.
• False Arrest and Malicious ProsecutionThe claims available to a person detained without probable cause or prosecuted without it - the state torts, their constitutional counterparts, and the favorable-termination rule that decides when a malicious-prosecution claim can be brought at all.
• Prisoners' Rights and the Prison Litigation Reform ActThe constitutional protections that survive incarceration - against cruel and unusual conditions, deliberate indifference to medical needs, and punishment without process - and the federal statute that makes a prisoner exhaust the prison's own grievance system before any of them can be enforced in court.
• Religious Freedom (RFRA and RLUIPA)The federal statutes that require government to justify any substantial burden on religious exercise by a compelling interest pursued in the least restrictive way - stronger than the constitutional rule, and the basis of most modern religious-liberty claims by prisoners, congregations and employers.
• Section 1983 Civil Rights ClaimThe federal statute allowing someone to sue a state or local official personally for violating their constitutional rights.

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