The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has charged a Queens residential real estate firm and one of its brokers with violating the Fair Housing Act by placing an advertisement on Craigslist that discriminated against families with children, according to HUD.

According to the allegations, Roberto Tristaino, then agent with Metro Net Realty in Old Howard Beach, placed the ads for a two-bedroom rental apartment in Bergen Beach on Craigslist in September and October 2008 with the note “mature couple or single without children” in the description.

Such descriptions violate the Fair Housing Act, which forbids any “preference, limitation or discrimination” based on familial status,” HUD indicated in the release. [more]

William Friedland, vice president at Friedland Properties, the Melar and Costas Kondylis, founder of Costas Kondylis & Partners

Developer Friedland Properties and architecture firm Costas Kondylis & Partners have finally settled all charges with the federal government relating to the Melar, a rental building at 250 West 93rd Street that came under fire for violations of the federal Fair Housing Act, according to an announcement from U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office.
Negotiations between the developers and federal authorities have been ongoing since last year. The government’s initial complaint, filed in October 2010, alleges that Friedland and Kondylis had failed to create public areas in the building, which is between Broadway and West End Avenue, that were readily accessible to residents with disabilities, as well as set light switches and other outlets in easy to reach locations or provide kitchens and bathrooms that were accessible to disabled persons. [more]

Should being pregnant and taking maternity leave ever constitute reasons to be turned down for a home mortgage or having your loan closing postponed?
You might think not, but two new legal actions by federal fair lending regulators suggest that the mortgage industry — and even federally run financing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — may need to address the issue.
In one case, a Seattle-area physician settled a discrimination complaint with Cornerstone Mortgage Co., a national mortgage banking firm based in Houston. In the second, the Department of Housing and Urban Development accused MGIC, one of the country’s highest-volume mortgage insurers, of discrimination by underwriters against a Pennsylvania homeowner whose application allegedly was denied because she was on maternity leave. [more]

SchoolFisher.com

From the April issue: Most New York City parents would say that one criterion reigns supreme in their home searches: school district. But brokers aren’t allowed to specifically steer families to neighborhoods with good schools, at the risk of violating the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits descriptive language like “bachelor pad” or “great for families” in advertising materials. Some parents say that requirement leaves them in the dark about which school districts to aim for.

That’s where the new website SchoolFisher.com comes in.

The site — which aims to help parents find great schools in affordable neighborhoods — was founded by Eric Grannis, a longtime charter school proponent and husband of Eva Moskowitz, the controversial head of Success Charter Network. [more]

From left: Barbara Fox, David Schlamm

Real estate brokers are becoming increasingly cautious with their listing descriptions to comply with federal, state and city fair housing laws, the New York Times reported. There is no official Department of Housing and Urban Development list of acceptable and unacceptable terms, and at one time that encouraged so much caution that the agency actually sent a list of phrases that were acceptable, including “bachelor apartment.” But as social sensitivities heighten, some brokers, including David Schlamm, president of City Connections, are wary of the phrases “bachelor pad,” “fisherman’s retreat” and “traditional neighborhood.” Barbara Fox of Fox Residential Group even refers to “family” — as in, a house is “perfect for families” — as the “f” word. [more]

A Rockland County landlord systematically dissuaded prospective African-American tenants from renting apartments at a Pearl River, N.Y. complex and violated the Fair Housing Act, a new civil rights lawsuit charges. The suit, filed yesterday in federal court in White Plains, alleges that the owners of the Pearl River Gardens residential complex have been discriminating against African-Americans since at least 2007, telling them that certain apartments were unavailable when they told prospective white tenants that they were, and providing them with inflated price quotes for apartments, compared to prices quoted for white tenants. The suit is seeking an injunction against the landlord’s behavior and monetary damages for the victims. TRD

The Reader’s Digest campus in the town of New Castle

The developers who purchased the Reader’s Digest campus in Westchester in late 2004 with plans to build housing on the 114-acre property are suing the town of New Castle for repeatedly refusing to approve their development plans, charging that racial, age and socioeconomic motivations were in play in their decisions. According to the Wall Street Journal, Summit Development and Greenfield Partners paid $59 million for the site six years ago and have since spent another $10 million on it, but between the financial crisis, the bankruptcy of Reader’s Digest, which forced the company to renege on its 20-year lease at its landmark headquarters there in 2009, and the town’s alleged resistance to affordable housing in the wealthy Chappaqua hamlet, the developers have had enough. They filed a lawsuit in New York state Supreme Court Friday, seeking to force the town to buy the property back from them. [more]

Norwich Gate

A Long Island landlord has been charged with violating the Fair Housing Act after allegedly refusing to provide a disabled resident with handicapped-accessible parking, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced today. The landlord, Heatherwood Communities, which owns and manages the Norwich Gate townhouse rental complex in East Norwich, N.Y., has a first-come, first-served parking policy, which it would not modify at the request of a resident with peripheral vascular and coronary artery disease, HUD charged. The resident claims to have asked for — and been denied — an assigned parking space multiple times, despite explaining that his condition makes it impossible for him to walk long distances. [more]

While proximity to high-ranking public schools can be a major selling point for luxury apartment developments, more building managers and listing agents are reluctant to tout their developments’ neighboring schools too much, according to the New York Times. Advertising that an apartment building is zoned for a particular school can conjure legal up problems and may be a violation of the Fair Housing Act, according to the Real Estate Board of New York, which strongly discourages brokers from mentioning specific schools in their marketing materials. [more]

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office has filed a civil lawsuit against an Upper West Side residential property owner and the convicted child rapist he hired as superintendent of his buildings. Stanley Katz, the landlord, and William Barnason, the super, have both been accused of allegedly violating the federal Fair Housing Act, according to the New York Post, which bars sexual discrimination in rental properties. The complaint cites Barnason’s allegedly repeated sexual harassment of female tenants, which includes withholding mail and denying apartment repairs to residents who did not respond favorably to his sexual advances. Barnason also allegedly entered some tenants’ units while intoxicated and threatened others verbally. Barnason had spent 14 years in prison for the rape and sexual abuse of three girls between the ages of five and seven.