Oh, Baby! Class Action Suit Alleges Broker Discrimination
This morning there are articles in the Times, the Sun, and the Post about a class-action lawsuit alleging that agents from Brown Harris Stevens’ Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights offices discriminated against a couple because they had a kid. The couple, Jamie Katz and Lisa Nocera, started looking to move from Manhattan to Brooklyn in…
This morning there are articles in the Times, the Sun, and the Post about a class-action lawsuit alleging that agents from Brown Harris Stevens’ Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights offices discriminated against a couple because they had a kid. The couple, Jamie Katz and Lisa Nocera, started looking to move from Manhattan to Brooklyn in 2006, when Nocera was pregnant. They found an apartment they wanted to rent in Brooklyn Heights but a broker from Brown Harris Stevens told them they couldn’t rent it because the landlord didn’t want kids in the unit. A year later the couple, who now had a baby, was once again trying to uproot to Brooklyn but were denied a Park Slope rental they wanted because the owner told another Brown Harris Stevens agent that the apartment had lead paint and therefore wasn’t safe for kids. Katz and Nocera are claiming that the refusal to rent to them violated federal, state, and city anti-discrimination laws, which specify that a landlord can’t say he won’t rent to prospective tenants based on “family status.” As the Times article points out, many brokers are unaware—or choose to ignore—the laws. The broker for the Park Slope apartment, for example, allegedly left a voice mail message for the couple saying the following: There was a child there before and … it was just a big, big, big problem and they’re just, they just absolutely are not going to go through that again…They just don’t want to have to deal with it. The suit seeks to ensure that Brown Harris Stevens agents comply with the law, and, if successful, it’ll probably influence the way brokers around the city behave towards would-be renters with children. “The brokers are enabling the discriminatory goals of the landlord,” the lawyer representing the couple told the Post.
Couple’s Suit Accuses Real Estate Firm of Bias Against Children [NY Times]
Real Estate Firm Sued Over Child Discrimination [NY Sun]
Apt. Suit: It’s Bias Vs. Kids [NY Post]
Photo by Lab2112.
SUSAN GREENFIELD (merdinger) vice president of Brown Harris Stevens real estate firm is a tramp and a dishonest business woman.
Vie De Merde
Journalists make mistakes in their writing all the time.
Their research is not as good as you think.
If you want to know something double check the info yourself.
Fair housing law is for everybody.
If the owner lives in the buildimg so what.
The law mandates they have to rent to people who have children.
It is discriminatory if the owner doesn’t..
New York has several different protected classes of people.
Here goes:
The people with disabilities, age is not a factor,
People with children.
Senior citizens,
Nationality, religion, color, etc.
Unmarried couples living together, gay or straight.
You cannot discriminate based on gender.
Discrimination against mental illness
(wide open for interpretation)
Children have rights, too but that is a whole other complicated subject.
The above list is only the tip of the iceberg.
It is a federal law.
Human Rights Commision and Open Housing Center is where you file your complaint.
They provide lawyers free of charge to protect your interests.
It doesn’t matter how much money you make or have.
Brooklynnative @ 12:32, I hope you realize that you are negatively stereotyping in the same way your mother’s would-be landlords did back in the day. You’re assuming that everyone with kids lets them run up and down the hallways and be obnoxious. Don’t you think that’s just as dangerous as stereotyping black people?
Only the on weight of baby elephants since landlords have to spend about $75k on ironwork to reinforce the building.
Can you charge additional rent based on the child’s weight?
Oh, and BTW, the photo of their baby-in-a-bubble is kind of cute!
6:12
We don’t rent out our upper duplex to tenants (chalk it up to a lifestyle decision…or maybe a “folly”)and I even shudder at the noise coming through the brick party wall once in a while, but you’re being mean writing that “renters are the scum of the earth.”
Maybe it’s just silliness…or…maybe you’re actually a renter, not a homeowner, so you’re just kidding and being ironic…
If so, it still reads as needlessly negative.
Renting is hard in NYC. Rents are really high right now and many people are making a lot of sacrifices to cover their rents. Many are paying north of 50% of their income in rent. It’s a sad situation. It is the same in other big cities around the world. Rents have gotten crazy.