Disability discrimination in Ohio from an HOA

JayP8,

HUD will get back to you, I promise.

Be aware that the language of HUD and fair housing law is a bit arcane. E.g. you have submitted a complaint, bu in the language of HUD and FHA law, the complaint is not formally "filed" (as in now the HOA is in trouble) until what you submitted passes a certain number of legal tests.

Would you please describe what mechanism you used to submit a complaint to HUD? Did you use HUD's online complaint form? Has HUD at least acknowledged it received your complaint?

If you want an estimate of the timeline for HUD's response, let me know.

Also if you have not already started keeping a journal of the board's responses, please do so. Stay on the lookout for anything that seems like retaliation. Retaliation against someone who filed a FHA complaint is almost always, all by itself, a violation of the Fair Housing Act.

JayP8, I will assume you welcome further comment.

-- Did this private attorney help you write either of the complaints you submitted?

-- Has this private attorney written a demand letter to the HOA? Because if you can afford this, I would expect it to get you action a lot quicker.

-- In HUD, statutory, and Code of Fed Regulations language, "filed" has a different meaning from that which you are using here. To make things easier in communications with HUD and here, I would use the word "submitted" instead of "filed." In fact, in HUD's eyes, while HUD agrees you have "submitted" a complaint, it has not actually been "filed."

-- I have seen state agencies turn around Fair Housing complaints much more quickly than the federal agencies. That's not meant to be criticism of the feds. It's just reality.

-- HUD should have an "intake specialist" reviewing your complaint, seeing if it passes all the tests. It's a fairly automaton-like process. If care was not taken in writing a complaint of this nature, intake specialists can reject complaints and not pass them to the next step. One can still lawyer up and pursue this with one's private lawyer, though. If HUD rejects your complaint, by my reading of the seriousness of this situation, this is far from over.

-- If your complaint passes the first round of HUD vetting (so to speak), I expect that two to six months may pass before HUD sends your complaint to the HOA and asks the HOA for its side of things.

-- So far, by my reading, I consider what has happened here to be pretty outrageous, fair housing wise. This is without the possibility that the HOA is selectively enforcing. (I would really downplay the selective enforcement. By my reading, this is a perfectly reasonable accommodation and I personally do not appreciate the HOA making your life, as a caretaker, any harder. You are saving the state and so taxpayer a lot of money by caring for your brother, for one thing. These *&^%ing HOA boards.)

-- I am sorry you have to spend anything on an attorney. If I were your (civil rights-fair housing attorney) I would start demanding the HOA pay you for your trouble, along with paying your attorney fees to get this situation "fixed" a.s.a.p. (I am not an attorney. I have a long, familial and other background in fair housing.)

I have personally witnessed a HOA bill an owner for the cost of addressing a Fair Housing complaint the owner had submitted. HUD did not pursue the complaint; it never even got formally "filed." The HOA Board, in its reckless naivete, figured it could bill the complainant-owner for the HOA's attorney fees. Wrong, and I do mean bigly.

The HOA brought suit to foreclose on the owner's home, exactly as you are fearing. It was horrible. And it was an incredibly stupid mistake by the HOA.

The owner found a pro bono civil rights lawyer, nationally known. The owner was very lucky. I could not believe it. It's hard to find lawyers to take on these (relatively small, but egregiously legally outrageous) cases.

HUD was great. But the private, concise and to the point, civil rights lawyer certainly helped put on the screws. He did not even behave like a pit bull. The latter was not needed. The facts and law were overwhelmingly on the owner's side.

About 1.5 years after the owner had first submitted the FHA complaint to HUD, a "HUD Conciliation Agreement" (a settlement) was reached.

One and one-half years was a long time. It was a lot of stress.

To review: Most of the time "filed" HUD complaints land in a settlement, where the accused HOA pays something; possibly has to apologize in writing; maybe has to re-write its procedures; and more.

I would be very surprised if your HOA Board is as stupid as the HOA I describe above. If the HOA attorney is at all competent, the HOA attorney will counsel the board to cave and to do so immediately. If the board is ignorant, egotistical and vindictive, and the HOA attorney just cares about billable hours, then retaliation may begin.

I hope your attorney is at least civil rights law specialized.

If your submitted HUD complaint gets past the initial vetting, then next either the HUD intake specialist, or someone one step above the specialist, will re-write the complaint to "perfect" it. The HUD staff will ask you if the new version of the complaint is acceptable to you. The HUD staff will accept just about any changes you want; they pretty much have to. But chances are what the HUD staff writes will be quite good.

The guys at this level are on your side at this step. They want the complaint to be legally accurate.

Really by my assessment, your "perfected" complaint should be like five sentences long. The five sentences (or so) includes the citations to the correct parts of the Fair Housing Act.

This puts you to a lot of trouble. Everyone I know who has gone through this (and I am up to five since 2013; four in the last few years) says the money they were paid as some kind of compensation (as in settlement) did not make it worth it. However, the money and aggravation that the HOAs and boards had to pay and experience did take a toll; did send a message; and did put boards and managers on alert to shape the hell up.

From a legal standpoint, situations like this make my blood boil.

If you wish, create an email address on gmail or yahoo where you can enjoy anonymity, and post it here. I will email you and stay available for assistance. One of my principal reasons for participating here is to stay alert to Fair Housing situations and help people with them, as a non-lawyer.

I am sorry there are such idiots in the world.

Actually HUD won’t get back with him. Complaints in Ohio are handled by state agency.

I sincerely wish your HOA would have answered your first communication and worked with you to reasonably modify the home for your brother, but honestly you deciding to stick an addition on the front of the home on the cheap to utilize an existing overhang is neither reasonable or respectful of your neighbors and the appearance of your community. Reasonable doesn’t mean the least expensive.

Now it sounds like you are looking for a payday too.

I didn't "stick" an addition onto the front of the home "on the cheap". It cost $2,000. It not only has beautified my home but has made it suitable for my brother's needs. Nowhere did I say that "reasonable" meant least expensive and the HOA doesn't care about the cost of the installation. They just want it gone. The house was built with a covered porch so I simply utilized that with a beautiful custom made safety enclosure. Calling something you haven't seen and characterizing it as "cheap" is not only judgemental but deeply insulting when you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

And no...I definitely am not looking for a payday but punitive damages to punish the board and to prevent them from ever bullying another disabled person again. I hope they get nailed right to the wall and have to explain to everyone why our dues are going up.

You sound like a bitter vindictive little man with your snide and condescending remarks.

If it was beautiful, your HOA wouldn’t be fighting you so hard and $2000 is on the cheap.

Of course they would, beautiful or not. Rules must be enforced. Reality be damned. /s

Unfortunately if as the poster describes, I don’t see that they have a choice about suing the hoa (and their neighbors). They have a stupid board that needs a reality check.

That is most certainly not their only choice. Another option is to, under FHA law, allow the fence as a "reasonable accommodation" to a disability. They might also consider apologizing for ignoring the original request. Also, given that according to the OP a similar fence was allowed to a neighbor for no apparent reason, the board should also have a discussion with their attorney regarding selective enforcement and how to avoid it.

Actually, it is a federal housing required to provide reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities.

No, didn’t miss that. We don’t know the op’s definition of timely. Timely can also depend on circumstances, which we also do not know. We do know based on the OP’s original note that the hoa was silent for four months, including after the change was made, which is I would guess is no one’s definition of timely.

How long did they wait for approval? Do you it was ignored?

Oh and they have no mortgage. Where is FHA to apply?

Sorry but their case is not going to win revenge. It will only get their accommodations at best. Suing others is just icing on the lawyers check.

Actually some (all?) state agencies, tasked with enforcing the state's fair housing laws, coordinate to some extent with HUD.

It is flatly incorrect to say that HUD simply hands this off to the state agency.

HUD has already gotten back to the OP.

FHA is type of loan program by the government. That could require more regulation.

A fence is a convenience item not a requirement for fair housing. A fair housing would be a wheelchair ramp and wheelchair accessible areas. A fence to keep someone bound to the grounds is due to the convenience it would be to help the situation.

In my experience, pursuing a Fair Housing violation is a highly difficult, stressful situation. Add to this the demands of caring for a mentally disabled adult sibling. (I too have an adult disabled sibling. By good luck I do not have to care for her. The state provides a lot of support to her.)

The stakes here are incredibly high. As if the OP does not have enough on his plate.

Consequently I respectfully request that members here consider ignoring MelissaP1's posts in this thread. She is getting too much wrong here.

So far I am watching the OP's, DavidG45's and NA1's posts here. To me, they know what they are talking about.

Also for the record: I changed my mind about mentioning the neighbor's front porch fencing system. On further thought, I am glad this went into the HUD complaint.

The focus should be far less on selective enforcement and far more on whether the request passes the tests for a "reasonable accommodation." In other words, this is less a covenants dispute than it is a fair housing disability violation dispute.

They still need to take down what they installed without permission period. Again they did not get approved. Anyone who puts up something not approved gets it removed.that is what the HOA is requesting.

They can remove it and send them the bill.that bill is what they could be lined for if not paid.

The OP posting things that do not happen as described. You do not get lien but for unpaid dues or bills for correction. Foreclosure for unpaid dues. Why all the drama and threats of lawsuits against the board and HOA?

So is my shower door... Is it unfair if I use a curtain?

FWIW I support this.

"By any means necessary."

Dear LetA,

I would be very grateful if you could drop any names at your disposal to the following email account:

[email protected]

In the meantime, since I used to work for the NBC and FOX affiliates in Cleveland back in the mid to late 90's, I still have some connections there which I won't use until the case is taken up by the Ohio Civil Rights Commission. I'm hoping to spare the HOA the bad publicity and give them a chance to educate themselves on how federal and state laws supercede their precious CC'R's.

Well, let’s see – I went to the HUD website, which defines reasonable accommodation as “a change, exception, or adjustment to a rule, policy, practice, or service that may be necessary for a person with disabilities to have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, including public and common use spaces, or to fulfill their program obligations. Please note that the ADA often refers to these types of accommodations as “modifications.”

It goes on to say “Under the Fair Housing Act, a reasonable modification is a structural change made to existing premises, occupied or to be occupied by a person with a disability, in order to afford such person full enjoyment of the premises. Reasonable modifications can include structural changes to the interiors and exteriors of dwellings and to common and public use areas. Examples include the installation of a ramp into a building, lowering the entry threshold of a unit, or the installation of grab bars in a bathroom. Under the Fair Housing Act, prohibited discrimination includes a refusal to permit, at the expense of the person with a disability, reasonable modifications of existing premises occupied or to be occupied by such person if such modifications may be necessary to afford such person full enjoyment of the premises.”

Then it provided general examples (obviously, this isn’t an inclusive list) –https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/FHEO/documents/RA-RM_Website_Examples.pdf

One example read: “Your child has an autism-related disability or a developmental/intellectual disability. As a result, your child tends to wander out of your home because they can easily open the locks on your doors. You may request additional or different locks or an alarm for when the door opens.”

Jay said this is a “safety structure with a latched door on the front porch” – still don’t know exactly what that is (if it’s a fence, just say so). Instead, he talked mostly about the porch. I understand him wanting to prevent his brother from falling off the porch, although I’m thinking railings around it would do the same thing. I also understand the concern about wandering, but Jay talked mostly about his brother sitting on the porch. That doesn’t mean a fence wouldn’t be helpful, but there are also emergency pendants with a GPS one can buy that work with an app so you can find out pretty quickly which way the person went. Some companies sell alarm systems for people with dementia – they will sound an alarm if the person opens the door (maybe that could have been installed on the gate?)

I second what ElleN just said about second guessing. I would add that the owner knows their brother, what his issues are, and how he will respond. Hopefully his providers do too. The board of this HOA is unlikely to be positioned to make such a judgment. The denizens of HOAtalk certainly are not. The board’s unwillingness to address this issue promptly or appropriately is to the detriment of all.

I hope the owner and their family are able to drive this to an appropriate solution. They certainly seem to need a disability housing lawyer.

You NA1 are an amazing writer.