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.
Why should the landlord have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to de-lead an apartment that someone else would find perfectly fine?
The city council deserves to be sued, not the broker.
If you don’t want to follow housing laws, don’t become a landlord.
Why would the couple want to move into an apartment with lead paint?
This is ridiculous. Hard to feel sorry for these “oppressed” people.
Who wants a baby crying in your apt chasing out your other tenants in a b-stone. Landlords in 3 family or less can rent to whoever they please if they live on premise. So they need to get over it.
I think the problem is not so much renting to a couple with a child. The problem is renting to a couple with a child who puts no boundaries on what the child can do or not do on someone else’s property. I was raised in an apt of a tow-family b’stone, and I can tell you that my parents would not let me run up and down the stairs or hop up and down on the floors or play ball or run around on the grass in the front yard, leave toys in the hallway or on the stairs, etc., etc. I was taught to respect property, whether it was ours or someone else’s. This sensibility seems to have gotten lost on this generation of parents. A rental apt is not a free-for-all. It belongs to someone else. If you do want a free-for-all, no-holds-barred lifestyle for your children, then you should buy a home where you are free to do whatever you wish. My parents certainly wanted that for me but were not in a position to buy a home of their own at the time.
A white couple with a baby. You gotta fight for your right to procreate.
I own a 2 family and I can rent to anyone I want. These people are Horrible, Just trying to get money. GO FIND ANOTHER APARTMENT.
test!