Fair Housing Act

The Fair Housing Act, enacted on April 11, 1968, is a landmark federal law targeted at eliminating discrimination in real estate. It was created to promote equal access to real estate chances for all individuals, especially marginalized groups, and to resolve historic injustices that added to property segregation. Initially concentrated on restricting discrimination based upon race, color, faith, and national origin, the Act has considering that expanded to consist of securities versus discrimination based on sex, special needs, and familial status.

The legislation emerged in the context of civil liberties activism and was catalyzed by considerable occasions, consisting of the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. The Act restricts different discriminatory practices in real estate, consisting of in sales, rental contracts, and funding, and empowers people to challenge prejudiced policies even if intent is not apparent. Enforcement of the Fair Real estate Act is supervised by the Department of Real Estate and Urban Development (HUD), which addresses problems and can impose penalties for offenses.

Despite its intents, critiques of the Act highlight continuous obstacles, such as the absence of economical real estate and systemic barriers that continue the real estate market. Overall, the Fair Real estate Act represents an important effort to foster inclusive communities and make sure equitable real estate gain access to throughout the United States.

Related Topics

Civil Rights Act of 1866
Federal Real Estate Administration
John F. Kennedy
Fourteenth Amendment (Supreme Court interpretations).
Reitman v. Mulkey.
Lyndon B. Johnson.
Robert C. Weaver.
Walter Mondale.
Reitman v. Mulkey.
Martin Luther King, Jr
. Civil Liberty Act of 1968.
Redlining.
Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Company

On this Page

Johnson’s Efforts.

Enforcement.

Bibliography.

Subject Terms

Fair Real Estate Act of 1968 (U.S.).

Real estate discrimination laws.

United States. Fair Real Estate Amendments Act of 1988.

United States.

Fair Real Estate Act

SIGNIFICANCE: The Fair Real Estate Act, which became law on April 11, 1968, prohibits discrimination in real estate, aiming to help break racial enclaves in residential neighborhoods and promote status seeking for marginalized people.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 supplied that all residents should have the same rights “to inherit, purchase, lease, offer, hold, and convey real and individual residential or commercial property,” however the law was never ever enforced. Instead, such federal agencies as the Farmers Home Administration, the Federal Real Estate Administration, and the Veterans Administration financially supported segregated real estate up until 1962, when President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 11063 to stop the practice.

California passed a general nondiscrimination law in 1959 and a specific reasonable real estate law in 1963. In 1964, citizens enacted Proposition 14, an effort to rescind the 1963 statute and the applicability of the 1959 law to real estate. When a property manager in Santa Ana declined to rent to a Black American in 1963, the latter taken legal action against, hence challenging Proposition 14. The California Supreme Court, which heard the case in 1966, ruled that Proposition 14 was contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution because it was not neutral on the matter of real estate discrimination; rather, based on the context in which it was adopted, Proposition 14 served to legitimate and promote discrimination. On appeal, the US Supreme Court let the California Supreme Court decision stand in Reitman v. Mulkey (1967 ).

Johnson’s Efforts

President Lyndon B. Johnson had wished to consist of real estate discrimination as a provision in the comprehensive Civil liberty Act of 1964, but he demurred when southern senators threatened to block the election of Robert Weaver as the very first Black cabinet appointee. After 1964, southern members of Congress were adamantly opposed to any expansion of civil rights. Although Johnson urged passage of a federal law versus real estate discrimination in demands to Congress in 1966 and 1967, there was no reference of the concept during his State of the Union address in 1968. Liberal members of Congress pushed the problem regardless, and southern senators responded by threatening a filibuster. This risk emboldened Senators Edward W. Brooke and Walter F. Mondale, a moderate Republican and a liberal Democrat, respectively, to cosponsor fair real estate legislation, but they required the support of conservative midwestern Republicans to break a filibuster. Illinois Republican senator Everett Dirksen organized a compromise whereby real estate discrimination would be stated unlawful, but federal enforcement power would be very little.

In the wake of Reitman v. Mulkey; the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968; and subsequent metropolitan riots, Congress developed reasonable real estate as a nationwide priority on April 10 by adopting Titles VIII and IX of the Civil Liberty Act of 1968, likewise referred to as the Fair Real Estate Act or Open Real Estate Act. Signed by Johnson on the following day, the law initially restricted discrimination in real estate on the basis of race, color, religious beliefs, or national origin. In 1974, a modification expanded the protection to include sex (gender) discrimination; in 1988, the law was reached protect persons with impairments and households with children more youthful than eighteen years of age.

Title VIII prohibits discrimination in the sale or rental of houses, in the financing of real estate, in advertising, in the usage of a numerous listing service, and in practices that “otherwise make unavailable or reject” real estate, an expression that some courts have actually translated to outlaw exclusionary zoning, mortgage redlining, and racial steering. Blockbusting, the practice of inducing a White homeowner to offer to a marginalized purchaser to terrify others on the block to sell their houses at a loss, is likewise forbidden. It is not needed to reveal intent to prove discrimination; policies, practices, and procedures that have the result of excluding marginalized individuals, individuals with disabilities, and children are illegal, unless otherwise considered affordable. Title VIII, as changed in 1988, covers individuals who believe that they are negatively impacted by a discriminatory policy, practice, or treatment, even before they sustain damages.

The law uses to about 80 percent of all real estate in the United States. One exception to the statute is a single-family home offered or leased without the usage of a broker and without prejudiced advertising, when the owner owns no more than 3 such houses and sells only one home in a two-year period. Neither does the statute apply to a four-unit home if the owner lives in one of the units, the so-called Mrs.-Murphy’s- rooming-house exception. Dwellings owned by private clubs or spiritual companies that lease to their own members on a noncommercial basis are likewise exempt.

Enforcement

Enforcement of the statute was left to the secretary of the Department of Real Estate and Urban Development (HUD). Complaints initially had to be submitted within 180 days of the upseting act, but in 1988, this duration was modified to one year. By the 2020s, HUD had actually estimated that countless circumstances of real estate discrimination happened each year; while lots of went unreported, the National Fair Real estate Alliance continued to release the total number, normally several thousands, of protests yearly. The US attorney general of the United States can bring a civil suit versus an ostentatious lawbreaker of the law.

According to the law, HUD instantly refers problems to local firms that administer “considerably comparable” reasonable real estate laws. HUD can act if the regional companies fail to do so, however initially was expected just to utilize conference, conciliation, and persuasion to bring about voluntary compliance. The Fair Real Estate Amendments Act of 1988 licensed an administrative law tribunal to hear cases that can not be settled by persuasion. The administrative law judges have the power to release cease-and-desist orders to angering celebrations. HUD has actually utilized “testers” to reveal discrimination. That testers have standing to sue was developed by the US Supreme Court in Havens v. Coleman (1982 ). Under the administrative law treatment, charges are issued according to very first offense and increase for additional offenses afterwards. Attorneys’ costs and court costs can be recovered by the prevailing party.

Title IX of the law prohibits intimidation or attempted injury of anyone filing a real estate discrimination grievance. If a complainant is in fact hurt, the penalty can increase and/or include a particular variety of years of imprisonment. If a complainant is eliminated, the penalty can be life imprisonment.

Under the laws of some states, a complainant filing with a state company need to waive the right to pursue a remedy under federal law. In 1965, a couple looked for to buy a home in a St. Louis rural real estate advancement, just to be told by the real estate agent that the home was not offered since one of the spouses was Black. Invoking the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the couple took legal action against the real estate developer, and the case went to the Supreme Court. In Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Company (1968 ), the Court chose that the Civil liberty Act of 1866 did permit a solution versus real estate discrimination by private celebrations.

Many have actually argued, however, that the impact of the 1968 Fair Real Estate Act has been minimal. Without a bigger supply of affordable real estate, numerous Black Americans, in specific, have no place to transfer to enjoy integrated real estate. Federal subsidies for low-priced real estate, under such legislation as the Real estate and Urban Development Act of 1968 and the Real Estate and Community Development Act of 1974, have actually declined substantially given that the 1980s.

Bibliography

” The Fair Real Estate Act. ” Civil Rights Division, US Department of Justice, 22 June 2023, www.justice.gov/crt/fair-housing-act-1. Accessed 14 Nov. 2024.

Kushner, James A. Fair Housing: Discrimination in Real Estate, Community Development, and Revitalization. McGraw, 1983.

Metcalf, George R. Fair Housing Comes of Age. Greenwood, 1988.

Prakash, Swati. “Racial Dimensions of Residential Or Commercial Property Value Protection under the Fair Housing Act.” California Law Review, vol. 101, no. 5, 2013, pp. 1437-97.

Schneider, Valerie. “In Defense of Disparate Impact: Urban Redevelopment and the Supreme Court’s Recent Interest in the Fair Housing Act.” Missouri Law Review, vol. 79, no. 3, 2014, pp. 539+.

Schwemm, Robert G., editor. The Fair Housing Act after Twenty Years. Yale Law School, 1989.