Nation's Largest Developer Of Multi-Family Housing Found Liable For Designing, Constructing Complexes In Violation Of Disabled Persons' Rights Under Fair Housing Act; Court: Legal Obligations Remain Unaffected By Post-Development Compliance-Dodging Efforts Thru Title Transfers

The law firm Cohen Milstein recently announced:

• Equity Residential, the nation’s largest developer of multi-family housing, must comply with the Fair Housing Act by ensuring that properties are accessible to people with disabilities before they are occupied, not afterwards, according to a decision by the U. S. District Court for the District of Maryland. The court further ruled in Equal Rights Center v. Equity Residential, that developers cannot avoid compliance with this law by transferring properties to another company following development.
  
  The lawsuit filed by the Equal Rights Center (ERC), a civil rights nonprofit organization, alleges that Equity Residential engaged in a pattern or practice of designing and constructing most, if not all, of its nearly 300 multi-family housing complexes in violation of the Fair Housing Act. The parties selected eight properties to present to the Court to determine whether the construction violated the law.
  
  At seven of the eight, the Court found Equity’s involvement significant enough to warrant liability as a matter of law, granting the ERC’s motion. The Court also found that the ERC had presented specific evidence of FHA accessibility violations that were, in some cases, so clear as to warrant a finding of liability without the need for trial. The Court stated that questions of fact need to be resolved at a future trial with respect to Equity’s legal liability for the eighth property and the remaining accessibility violations.
  
  The case followed ERC’s lengthy investigation of multi-family housing developers, which revealed widespread evidence of multi-family housing construction that was not accessible to people with disabilities.

For more, see Properties Must Be Accessible to People with Disabilities Before Occupancy Federal Court Rules (Equity Residential Cannot Bypass Fair Housing Act Laws by Transferring Properties).

For the court ruling, see Equal Rights Center v. Equity Residential, No. CCB-06-1060 (D. Md. March 31, 2016).