Fair Housing Act

Enforcement

Amendments to the Fair Housing Act in 1988 created an administrative complaint process within the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), liberalized the punitive damages and attorney fees provisions applicable to private lawsuits, and authorized civil penalties and damage awards to aggrieved persons in cases brought by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). As a consequence, over the past two decades, persons injured by discriminatory housing practices have had a choice between filing an administrative complaint with HUD (or a state or local agency whose fair housing law has been deemed equivalent to the Fair Housing Act in terms of substantive protections and procedural remedies) and proceeding with private litigation in federal court. An administrative complaint must be filed within 1 year of the occurrence or termination of a discriminatory housing practice; federal litigation must be commenced within 2 years.

As of January 1, 2011, the laws of 40 states and 56 municipalities had been deemed substantially equivalent to the Fair Housing Act. Under HUD regulations and procedure, administrative complaints pertaining to such jurisdictions are referred to the appropriate state or local agency for investigation and adjudication.

According to the National Fair Housing Alliance, 28,851 administrative complaints were filed in 2010. For the past 5 years, complaints of disability discrimination have constituted the largest number of complaints, followed by race and familial [Page 204]status claims. More than half of these administrative complaints concerned discrimination in rental transactions, with smaller percentages alleging discrimination in home sales, mortgage lending, insurance or retaliation. Most of the Fair Housing Act complaints that HUD retains are resolved by conciliation or some other means that does not involve a formal determination concerning the discrimination alleged. About 5% of the cases result in formal charges of discrimination. In about 60% of these charged cases, one or more of the parties “elects” to have the case decided in federal district court, where it is prosecuted by the DOJ and where the court may award equitable relief, actual and punitive damages to aggrieved persons, and attorney fees. If there is no election to court, the case is prosecuted by a HUD lawyer and is tried before a HUD-appointed administrative law judge, who may award actual damages to the aggrieved person, civil penalties of up to $55,000 to the government, injunctive relief, and attorney fees.

...