Laurence Harmon

Dozens of federal, state, and local laws govern the residential rental industry and the landlord-resident relationship. All of these laws are important. The following calls to your attention ten important laws for you to know and follow when you're a landlord. The Fair Housing Act The Fair Housing Act prohibits you from discriminating against applicants or residents based on any of the seven protected classes: Race Color Sex National origin Religion Handicap Family status The Fair Housing Act establishes only the minimum protections.

Residents often need or want to take on a new roommate, sublet the rental unit, or assign their rental contract to someone else. To deal with these types of situations, consider this advice when you’re a landlord: Require that all prospective roommates be screened and added to the rental contract. Prohibit residents from subletting their rental units.

How you choose to structure your business as the landlord depends in part upon your willingness to share its future and yours with others. Forming a corporation is a fairly complex legal endeavor that involves the following steps: Choose and register a name for your corporation that complies with state requirements.

The Internet is an exceptionally popular and productive medium for residential advertising, because many people begin their search for apartments online. However, posting advertisements and listings online is so easy that you need to be particularly vigilant in complying with fair housing law in all of your online advertising.

When landlords fail to maintain habitable and nuisance-free rental properties and fail to remedy serious issues raised by residents, several consequences may follow. However, for you to be held legally liable and for residents to have a right to take recourse, the following five conditions must be met: The issue makes the resident’s premise uninhabitable or a significant threat to the resident’s life, health, or safety.

Being a landlord certainly sounds easy. All you have to do is line up responsible residents, maintain the property, and count your money as the rent rolls in, right? Actually, no. Owning and leasing residential real estate requires that you comply with a host of federal, state, and local laws. Certain residents may complicate your life by taking legal action against you or forcing you to take legal action against them.

As a landlord, you can choose to document your arrangement with renters using a lease or a rental agreement. You should know what each of these is and which is best for any given situation. All enforceable contracts, including leases and rental agreements, have three requirements: Offer: One party offers the other something in return for receiving something else.

As a landlord, it’s good for you to realize that resident rights extend beyond the doors of their dwellings and beyond the confines of the rental property. You also need to respect and protect any personal data you collect about residents, avoid the temptation to contact your resident at work, and be very careful not to spread negative rumors about a resident.