At most communities, the maintenance professionals have the most contact with residents and are therefore most likely to be involved in a fair housing issue. Many fair housing complaints arise from team members trying to be helpful, not being aware of proper procedure, or just plain ignorance of fair housing compliance protocols. While it’s impossible to prevent all fair housing complaints, regularly scheduled training of everyone in a customer-facing role can lessen the possibility of being named in a fair housing complaint.
Are your maintenance professionals trained to effectively and appropriately answer the most common questions asked by those residents and prospects?
To ensure fair housing compliance, it is essential that everyone on the maintenance team is able to respond to the most commonly asked questions with a fair housing friendly answer, even if that answer is simply to direct the question to the manager!
Doug Chasick, That Fair Housing Guy™, is the former President of the Fair Housing Institute, Inc. With more than 49 years of investment real estate experience, he began as the Resident Manager of a 524-unit apartment property and has been the President or CEO of five real estate companies, responsible for portfolios of over 28,000 apartments, and more than 8 million square feet of commercial, retail and industrial properties.