It’s that time again when we look back at the past 12 months and set goals for the upcoming year—losing weight, hitting the gym, or getting organized. Whatever your personal goals, turning the page on the calendar is also good time to take stock of your current fair housing efforts. Are there things you’re doing wrong—or just not doing as right as you think you are? If so, now is the time to identify them and make some New Year’s resolutions to correct them to avoid fair housing trouble in the year ahead.

It can be challenging to spot the hidden flaws in your compliance program before a plaintiff, government investigator, or court does. But you’re not alone. Fair housing litigation is the compiled tales of owners in the same spot. The good news is that you can learn from their experiences. Going to school on what they did right and wrong can help you evaluate and improve your own compliance efforts without being dragged into a legal proceeding. 

With that in mind, we’re going to propose five fair housing resolutions for 2026 based on the cases and lessons we covered in 2025—and show you how to keep them. Then, you can take the Coach’s Quiz to see how much you’ve learned.

5 FAIR HOUSING RESOLUTIONS FOR 2026

Resolution #1: Beef Up Fair Housing Training

Problem: Staffing shortages and heavy workloads can lead to a very bad habit: skimping on—or entirely skipping—fair housing training. If your property was guilty of that this past year, make training a top priority for 2026.  

Fair housing experts warn that you should never let any employee speak to prospects, applicants, or residents until she has completed at least one fair housing class and met with her supervisor to review your property’s policies and procedures. It’s not uncommon for fair housing problems to arise from stray comments by new employees who don’t understand the basics of fair housing law.

But fair housing training means more than simply memorizing the protected characteristics and prohibited practices. Training shouldn’t be “one-and-done.” It’s essential to ensure that your staff understands how fair housing law applies in real-life situations. 

Solution: To accomplish that, you need to make training not only mandatory, but ongoing. Resolve to institute a regular fair housing training schedule.

Conducting training sessions on a regular basis also serves an important function: It fosters open lines of communication with your staff. Encourage employees to report anything they see or hear that even hints at a fair housing problem. Be sure to include all your employees, not just your leasing staff, because your maintenance workers, housekeepers, and landscaping crew can alert you to potential problems that you might not otherwise hear about.

2025 Lessons to Review: 

• 10 Dos & Don’ts for Effective Employee Fair Housing Training
• How to Keep Maintenance Staff from Triggering Fair Housing Claims
• How to Avoid Illegal Steering

Resolution #2: Clarify Procedures to Include Proper Documentation

Problem: Another bad habit born out of time constraints is not bothering to thoroughly document interactions with prospects and residents that could lead to discrimination claims. Making sure your standard procedures are clear and include a documentation requirement can help your staff break that habit.

Not all fair housing-related decisions your staff will face are clear-cut. And even if your staff makes the right decision, a prospect or resident may challenge it by filing a discrimination claim. For example, a resident with no apparent disabilities may ask permission to keep an assistance animal in your no-pets building. The staffer receiving this request must recognize it as a request for a reasonable accommodation, know exactly what your procedures are for evaluating the request, and just as important, document how their decision about whether to grant it was reached.

Nowhere is the decision-making process more complicated than when it comes to requests for reasonable accommodations like assistance animals. More than half of all formal fair housing complaints are based on disability, many of which stem from a refusal to grant an accommodation request. So, make sure your fair housing training includes how to recognize and respond to accommodation requests. And review your standard procedure for handling accommodation requests to make sure it’s crystal clear. 

If, after following all proper procedures to verify a requester’s disability-related need for an accommodation, your staff makes the correct decision to deny the request, a resident unhappy about it may accuse you of discrimination. If and when that happens, the mere fact that your staff followed proper procedures and complied with the law may not be enough to protect you. You’ll also need proof of compliance. 

In any fair housing case, proof may include: 

• Records of fair housing training, interactions with prospects, and application decisions; 
• Maintenance and repair records; 
• Documentation of accommodation requests; 
• Written verification of the disability-related need for accommodations; 
• Documentation of suggestions for alternative accommodations, etc.

Solution: Resolve to review all your standard procedures to make sure not only that they’re clear, but also that they include a documentation requirement.

2025 Lessons to Review: 

• 11 Recordkeeping Best Practices for Minimizing Fair Housing Liability
• Use 4-Step Process for Evaluating Accommodation Requests

Resolution #3: Don’t Let Amenities Become Fair Housing Liabilities

Problem: In their haste to offer new amenities—like swimming pools, fitness centers, and basketball courts—to set themselves apart from the competition, landlords may fall into another bad habit: not considering the fair housing issues related to their use. Your competitive advantage may turn into a liability if your house rules unfairly limit or bar the use of amenities by children or people with disabilities.

Example: The parents of three young children sued their landlord for adopting a rule stating that “Children under the age of 18 are not allowed in the pool or pool area at any time unless accompanied by their parents or legal guardian.” The federal court ruled that the rule was too restrictive. A “prohibition on unsupervised swimming which would prevent even a 17-year-old certified lifeguard from swimming unaccompanied is overly restrictive,” reasoned the court. While recognizing “the inherent dangers of unsupervised swimming,” the court concluded that requiring that a parent or legal guardian to supervise “transforms this rule” from a legitimate safety precaution to an unjustified restriction on children and their families” [Iniestra v. Cliff Warren Investments, Inc., C.D. Cal. 2012, 886 F.Supp.2d 1161].

It’s not establishing health and safety rules for use of amenities but the way you draft them that’s going to get you into hot water. The most common mistake landlords make is creating rules that go too far while overlooking alternatives that would achieve the same health or safety objective in a way that’s less restrictive to families with children and the disabled. 

Solution: Resolve to review your rules for the use of amenities at your property and rewrite them if necessary.

2025 Lesson to Review: 

• Avoid 8 Discrimination Pitfalls When Setting Rules for Common Use Amenities

Resolution #4: Extend Fair Housing Principles to Guests, Not Just Residents and Prospects

Problem: Most fair housing training and compliance efforts center around the treatment of prospects and residents. But discrimination claims can also arise from the treatment of residents’ guests. If your training ignores fair housing issues related to guests, break that bad habit now.

The FHA bans discrimination not only against residents, but also against anyone who associates with them. That means landlords could be liable for discrimination against guests—such as a resident’s friends, visitors, or aides—because of their race, color, or other protected characteristic. So, for example, if your policy allows guests to use your recreational facilities, you can’t deny admittance to a guest for discriminatory reasons.

The law also bans discrimination against a resident because of his guests. That is, even if the resident is not a member of a protected class, he could file a fair housing claim if your property discriminates against him because he associates with members of a protected class.

Example: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a discrimination case against a landlord for allowing its property manager to seek to evict two white families for befriending a Black family at the property. The manager and maintenance supervisor also used racial slurs and created a racially hostile housing environment for all three families. Under the eventual settlement agreement, the landlord agreed to pay $45,000 and admit that the allegations were true [U.S. v. T.K. Properties, LLC, (D. S.D.) 2011].

Example: The DOJ sued a West Virginia public housing authority for allowing a white tenant to racially harass a Black family in a neighboring apartment. The landlord was aware of what was going on but didn’t take steps to enforce its community anti-harassment policy and simply allowed the neighborly racial abuse to continue [U.S. v. Wheeling Housing Auth., (N.D. W.Va.), 2011].

Chances are, your property has house rules regulating guests’ behavior and holding residents accountable for the guests they bring in. 

Solution: Resolve to review your guest policies to ensure fair treatment of residents’ friends, family, and other associates.

2025 Lesson to Review: 

• Avoid Potential Fair Housing Liability When Dealing with Tenants’ Guests

Resolution #5: Keep Up with State and Local Fair Housing Laws

Problem: One very common bad habit is procrastination. So don’t put off that periodic call to your property’s attorney to see if any new fair housing protections have been added to your state or local laws. Many state and local governments have expanded fair housing protection well beyond federal law to ban discrimination based on source of income, military and veteran status, and various other characteristics. To fully protect your property from fair housing trouble, it’s important to understand—and abide by—all federal, state, and local fair housing laws applicable to your property.

Example: In July 2020, the NFHA reached a settlement agreement with a Washington, D.C., community that allegedly used its website to discourage Section 8 rentals. According to the complaint, the website required prospects to identify whether they intended to use a Section 8 voucher to pay rent and prevented them from scheduling an apartment viewing if they answered “yes.” NFHA also claimed that when its testers called the company to ask about viewing an apartment, the owners consistently indicated that they didn’t accept vouchers. Under the settlement, the company agreed to end its alleged source-of-income discriminatory practices, require all staff to complete fair housing training practices, and run ads and post signs in both English and Spanish stating that the company accepts housing vouchers [National Fair Housing Alliance v. Evolve LLC].

Solution: Review your policies—particularly if they’ve been in place for some time—to update them with any changes to state and local laws that may affect your property. You could be vulnerable to a fair housing claim if additional protected classes have been added to your state or local law since your policies were last updated. 

2025 Lesson to Review: 

• State of the States: Complying with Ever-Expanding State Fair Housing Laws