The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is formalizing the national standard for determining whether a housing practice violates the Fair Housing Act as the result of discriminatory effect.
HUD is statutorily charged with interpreting and enforcing the Fair Housing Act. It has consistently interpreted the Act to prohibit housing practices with an unjustified discriminatory effect, if those acts actually or predictably result in a disparate impact on a group of persons, or create, increase, reinforce, or perpetuate segregated housing patterns because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.
The new rule will take effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.
Read HUD’s press release.