Age Discrimination & Rent Laws
- It is against the law to discriminate a person seeking to rent a home because of that person's age.grand p?¡§re image by Emmanuel MARZIN from Fotolia.com
Age discrimination is the practice of treating another unfairly because of her age or the age of any of her relatives, work colleagues, friends or associates. Generally, it is illegal to discriminate against an otherwise qualified individual based on her age in situations involving her efforts to rent a home or car. However, there are several exceptions to this general legal prohibition against age discrimination in rental situations; these exceptions typically apply in contexts in which age-related rental qualifications are reasonable under the particular set of circumstances. - An applicant for a home rental may not be denied fair and equal consideration because of his age.House for sale image by Heng kong Chen from Fotolia.com
Rental accommodations include houses, units, flats, hotel or motel rooms and commercial premises. It is illegal for a landlord, managing owner, real estate broker or salesperson to discriminate against any person due to age in any of the following circumstances: refusing to sell, ren, or lease; refusing to negotiate; misrepresenting that housing is not available for inspection, sale, renta, or lease; providing inferior services, terms and conditions; providing segregated accommodations; canceling a housing agreement; and refusing to make reasonable accommodations in rules and policies or modifications to a rental unit necessary to allow a person with an age-related medical condition the full opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling. It is also illegal to discriminate in any of the above forms against families with children under age 18 or to require families to pay a higher rent because they have young children; or otherwise denying or withholding accommodation. - Housing for senior citizens may exclude families with young children or require tenants to be of a certain age on the ground that the accommodation is specifically designed to meet the needs of this particular age group; "housing for senior citizens" typically includes housing occupied by persons of least 60 years of age.
Owners of owner-occupied, single family homes who rent out a room in the home when there are no other roomers living in the household are typically not subject to the above rules against unlawful age discrimination.
A person living in a single-family dwelling may express a preference on the basis of age when advertising for a roommate if the dwelling's common living areas will be shared by the roommate.
Accommodations on licensed premises may preclude occupants under the age of 18 from accessing the licensed areas. - As a general rule, it is also illegal to discriminate an otherwise qualified applicant seeking to rent a car or other vehicle due to age. However, because of the public safety considerations implicated by the operation of vehicles, vehicle rental companies are given far greater leeway under the law in setting blanket age restrictions on who can and cannot rent vehicles.
In particular, numerous rental companies require drivers to be at least 25-years-old as a condition for renting a vehicle. Several companies will rent to drivers over 21, but penalize those under age 25 with a daily surcharge. Others restrict the types of vehicles drivers under age 25 are permitted to rent. Nearly all will refuse to rent to drivers under 21-year- old; in fact, NY is the only state presently requiring car rental companies to rent to all qualified drivers 18 years and above. Despite valid arguments to the contrary, the consensus is that this particular practice of age-based rental denials does not constitute age discrimination because it is reasonable under the circumstances; law-makers consider the documented high rate of severe accidents associated with drivers under 25-years-old to be valid legal justification.
