Rule explainer Not legal advice

Fair Housing advertising rules for listings and blog posts

Read this to work out which of your pages the Fair Housing Act's advertising rule reaches, what it treats as a preference, and how long somebody has to raise it. It runs in the rule's own order and its own words, alongside plain English.

The rule42 U.S.C. §3604(c), the advertising subsection of the Fair Housing Act, implemented at 24 CFR §100.75. Between them they cover race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status and national origin. Sources 1 and 2, numbered at the foot of this page.

How the rulebook changed

1968Advertising gets its own subsectionThe Act makes it unlawful to refuse a rental, and separately unlawful to say the wrong thing about one. Two subsections, not one, which is why they can be exempted separately.
September 13, 1988Two more classes are added hereThe amendments insert “handicap, familial status” after “sex” here, effective on the 180th day after. Familial status is what changed ordinary leasing copy.
May 1, 1996HUD deletes its advertising guidelines24 CFR Part 109, the Advertising Guidelines, is removed as nonbinding guidance. The statute is untouched. Every word list still in circulation descends from a part that left the regulations thirty years ago.

Scope

Does it reach you?

Four situations cover almost everyone reading this. Three are settled. The fourth is the one most property managers have not considered.

Applicability“The prohibitions in this section shall apply to all written or oral notices or statements by a person engaged in the sale or rental of a dwelling.” Source 2.

You advertise apartments for rent

It reaches every page

The statute covers any notice, statement or advertisement about renting a dwelling, and the regulation stretches that to all written or oral statements by anyone in the business of renting one. Read on.

You manage the building, you do not own it

It reaches you and the owner

The statute reaches whoever makes, prints or publishes the statement, or causes it to be. A management company, a leasing agent and the agency that wrote the copy are inside that clause, and so is the owner who signed it off.

Your property is small enough to be exempt

Exempt from the rest, never from this

The exemption for an owner renting a few houses, or a room in the building they live in, opens with the words Nothing in section 3604 of this title (other than subsection (c)). Whatever else it releases you from, it never releases what you say.

It is a blog post, not a listing

Write it as though it is covered

Neither the statute nor the regulation draws a line between a page listing a unit and a page about the neighborhood, and the regulation's list of covered documents is openly partial: include, but are not limited to. A community guide on a leasing site is a written statement by someone renting dwellings, so the same words are out of bounds there.

What counts as advertising →

The test

What counts as a statement

The statute's test is short and has two halves. The words have to be a notice, statement or advertisement with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling. And they have to indicate a preference, limitation or discrimination because of one of seven characteristics, or an intention to make one. That is the whole subsection.

The reach comes from HUD's regulation rather than the statute. It applies the prohibition to all written or oral notices or statements by a person engaged in renting a dwelling, then lists applications, flyers, brochures, signs, banners and billboards as examples of the written ones. It was drafted before anybody had a website, and nothing in it makes a page different from a flyer.

Where to lookThe two halves of the test are at 42 U.S.C. §3604(c). The scope sentence and the document list are at 24 CFR §100.75(b). Sources 1 and 2.

Is this covered?

Worked examples

Worked from the statute and HUD's regulation. Where a real page lands is a judgement about your facts.

The core of it

What it prohibits, in the regulation's order

HUD's regulation runs to four short paragraphs. The first restates the statute almost word for word, so it is quoted once at the top and not again. The rest say how far the ban reaches, give four examples of what breaks it, and point at guidance that no longer exists.

Reading noteThe middle column is verbatim: the statute at the top, HUD's regulation below it. Paragraph letters sit in the left margin so you can find each in the source. Sources 1 and 2.

42 U.S.C. §3604(c) and 24 CFR §100.75, as written

Point at either side to link them

Verbatim

In plain English

§3604(c)To make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or an intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination.

§100.75(b)

The prohibitions in this section shall apply to all written or oral notices or statements by a person engaged in the sale or rental of a dwelling. Written notices and statements include any applications, flyers, brochures, deeds, signs, banners, posters, billboards or any documents used with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling.

In plain EnglishThe widest sentence in the rule, and the reason this page exists. Everything you put in writing as someone in the business of renting is inside it, and the list is examples, not limits. The verb doing the work is “indicates”: nobody has to prove you preferred anyone.

§100.75(c)(1)

Using words, phrases, photographs, illustrations, symbols or forms which convey that dwellings are available or not available to a particular group of persons because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.

In plain EnglishWords and pictures in one sentence, which is the paragraph marketing teams have never read. A photo set showing one kind of household conveys availability the way a slogan does.

§100.75(c)(2)

Expressing to agents, brokers, employees, prospective sellers or renters or any other persons a preference for or limitation on any purchaser or renter because of race, color … or national origin of such persons.

In plain EnglishNot about advertising at all. It reaches what you say to your own leasing team, putting a note to staff about the sort of resident you want on the same line as a billboard.

§100.75(c)(3)

Selecting media or locations for advertising the sale or rental of dwellings which deny particular segments of the housing market information about housing opportunities because of race, color … or national origin.

In plain EnglishAbout where you advertise rather than what you wrote. It is the paragraph that quietly aged into the audience settings on an ad platform.

§100.75(c)(4)

Refusing to publish advertising for the sale or rental of dwellings or requiring different charges or terms for such advertising because of race, color … or national origin.

In plain EnglishAimed at the publisher, not you, so the portal carrying your listing cannot discriminate in running it or pricing it.

§100.75(d)

24 CFR part 109 provides information to assist persons to advertise dwellings in a nondiscriminatory manner and describes the matters the Department will review in evaluating compliance with the Fair Housing Act

In plain EnglishRead that, then go and look for part 109. HUD removed it in 1996, so the pointer is still here and what it points at has not existed for thirty years. Taken slowly next, because most of what people believe about banned words came out of it.

Quoted text is the statute's and HUD's own, with the repeated list of protected characteristics shortened after its first appearance. The right-hand column is our rendering, not part of either. Sources 1 and 2.

Vocabulary

Four words that carry the weight

The subsection is one sentence and reuses the same few terms. Most arguments about a draft turn out to be arguments about one of them.

Indicates

The ban is on a statement that indicates a preference. It does not ask what you intended and nobody needs to have been refused. The impression left on a reader is the test.

Preference, limitation or discrimination

Three words, not one. Encouraging one group is inside the ban as much as excluding another, which is why warm copy aimed at one sort of resident catches careful people.

Cause to be published

The statute reaches whoever caused the statement to go out, not only whoever typed it. An agency, a manager and an owner can be inside that clause at once.

Dwelling

Any building, or part of one, intended for occupancy as a residence by one or more families. The Act adds that family includes a single individual, so a studio counts.

The part almost nobody explains

The word list nobody can produce

One belief wastes more time than the whole rest of the rule: that HUD publishes a list of forbidden words and staying off it is the job.

What happened24 CFR Part 109, HUD's Advertising Guidelines, was removed from the Code of Federal Regulations effective May 1, 1996. HUD's stated reason was that the regulatory reform initiative of the day “requires the deletion of nonbinding guidance or explanations”. Source 5.

What people think is in force

There is an official list of forbidden words. Avoid them and the listing is safe.

The lists in circulation descend from something HUD once printed, so they are not invented. They are not the rule, they were never complete, and a page can clear every entry and still indicate a preference.

What is actually in force

One sentence: the statement must not indicate a preference, limitation or discrimination.

HUD took its Advertising Guidelines out of the rulebook in 1996 and said it would give that help through handbooks instead. The statute did not move. A word list is a habit, not a defence.

Four things people get backwards: the left column is what gets asked, the right is what decides it

Which words are bannedNo list is in force. The question is what the sentence indicates.

What you meant by itNot asked anywhere. The statute says indicates, and stops.

Only the listing copyEvery written statement you make as someone renting dwellings.

Only the wordsPhotographs, illustrations and symbols, named alongside them.

The exception

55 and over, and the three conditions under it

One exception to the familial-status ban matters to anyone marketing age-restricted housing. It is narrower than its reputation, it carries three conditions rather than one, and the 80 percent everybody quotes is only the first. Drag the occupancy and watch what it leaves open.

The exceptionHousing for older persons sits at 42 U.S.C. §3607(b). The three conditions on the 55 route are at (b)(2)(C)(i) to (iii); the 62 route is at (b)(2)(B). Source 3.

Occupancy, and what it does not settle

Drag the occupancy

Occupied units with at least one person aged 55 or over 0%

Below the line

At least 80 percent of occupied units house someone 55 or over (b)(2)(C)(i) Not met
Published policies and procedures demonstrating the intent (b)(2)(C)(ii) Required
Age verification under HUD's rules, by survey and affidavit (b)(2)(C)(iii) Required

Under 80 percent the exception is not available, and “55+” in your advertising is a limitation because of familial status like any other. The two below stay open whatever the occupancy does.

The 80 percent is a floor, not a pass. The statute says at least 80 percent, so the line is reached at 80 and not above it, and the other two stay open at every level. Source 3.

The other route is stricter, not looser. Housing intended for, and solely occupied by, persons 62 years of age or older qualifies with no percentage and no slack: one younger resident and the description has stopped being true. Most communities are on the 55 route, whose conditions you keep meeting rather than meet once.

And the good-faith shield has a price. Someone who relied on the exception in good faith is not personally liable in damages, but only where they had no actual knowledge the community was ineligible and it “has stated formally, in writing” that it complies. If nobody can produce that statement, the shield is not there.

How long this stays live

One year, two years, and a page nobody took down

Nothing tells you to keep copies of your own advertising, which is the first surprise. There are two deadlines for somebody else to raise it, and both run from the later of two dates. A page still on your site keeps that date moving.

The two clocksA complaint to HUD runs “not later than one year after an alleged discriminatory housing practice has occurred or terminated”. A private suit runs “not later than 2 years after the occurrence or the termination … whichever occurs last”. Source 7.

The window on one page

42 U.S.C. §3610(a) and §3613(a)

Still on your site Taken down. Both clocks are running. Still up, so the later of the two dates has not arrived.

Start: the later of when it went up and when it came down +2 years

One year to complain to HUD, two years to sue, and the statute says whichever date occurs last. Taking the page down fixes the outside edge.

A page never taken down has no termination date, so the later of the two has not arrived. A post published four years ago and left up is not four years old for this purpose. How a court would apply that wording to a web page is not something we can settle here, and it is not a comfortable argument to be having.

The consequence people trip over: a site edited in place, keeping no copy of what a page said before, cannot show what it said. Source 7.

What sits at the end is set by regulation and adjusted for inflation each year: up to $26,262 with no prior finding against you, $65,653 where one was made in the preceding five years, and $131,308 where two or more were. Those are the amounts as last adjusted in June 2025, charged per separate and distinct discriminatory housing practice.

One section about our software, then back to the rule

What Verand checks of this rule, and what it does not

Everything above stands whether or not you buy anything. This is how much of it software can see in a draft. The right-hand column is longer.

What it checks

Blocks four kinds of sentence outright, none overridable by anyone: a familial-status exclusion (no children, adults only, child-free); a preference by religion, race, color or national origin; a disability exclusion, including refusing service or emotional support animals; and targeting written as perfect for, ideal for or great for, plus a named group.
Raises five more it cannot settle alone: age-restricted framing, reviews called independent or verified, targeting by orientation or identity, refusing housing vouchers, marital-status targeting. Three are state law rather than federal, so they go to a person and not a gate.
Reads the markup, not only the prose. The scan runs over the finished HTML, so an exclusion in an image's alt text is caught like one in a paragraph.
Blocks a guaranteed result from the truth-in-advertising floor every site carries, and raises government-endorsement, proof and risk-free language off the same floor.
Requires an Equal Housing Opportunity statement on every article, naming the protected classes, and marks a draft failing without one. It does not block publishing: nothing federal requires that statement in your content, because the guidance that asked for it went with Part 109.

What it does not

It does not catch every phrasing, and the gaps are specific. “Ideal for mature residents” passes, because the targeting pattern covers mature adults, mature individuals and mature professionals, not the word residents. “No animals of any kind” passes, because the disability check names service, support and emotional support animals. Neither is a reason to write either sentence.
It cannot verify an age restriction. Nothing in your text says what share of your units house someone over 55, or whether the written policies exist. A 55+ claim goes to a person and always will.
It does not look at your photographs. It reads text and alt text. Whether a photo set conveys that a building is for one kind of household is left to a person.
It does not know your state's extra protected classes. Source of income, orientation, identity and marital status are protected in some places and not others; the packs run at the federal baseline.
It does not publish. Nothing reaches your site without a person at your company approving it, and no setting changes that.

Validated against the Fair Housing Act's advertising rule. AI-researched from the primary sources; operator review pending. Not legal advice. How we label review →

Verand for property managers Can property managers use AI to write listings? →

Questions

The ones that come up

About the rule, not about our software. Each points at the paragraph it comes from.

Can we say a home is perfect for young professionals?

No, and it is the phrase most likely to be in your copy right now. It conveys who the dwelling is available to, which is what paragraph (c)(1) names. Describe the unit instead: a compact studio with in-unit laundry reaches the same reader and says nothing about who may live in it.

Our community really is 55 and over. Can we say so?

Yes, if it genuinely qualifies, and the advertising is the easy half of that. Three conditions have to hold at once, and one is that you publish and adhere to policies demonstrating the intent, so your marketing is itself part of the evidence. If it does not qualify, the same sentence is a limitation because of familial status.

We rent out two houses. Does the small-landlord exemption cover us?

Not for this. The exemption is real and narrower than most people assume, and its opening words are that nothing in section 3604 other than subsection (c) applies. You can sit outside the rest of the Act and inside this sentence at once.

Can we write that we do not accept housing vouchers?

Source of income is not a federally protected class. It is protected in some states and cities, California among them, and we do not hold a verified list of the rest, which is why Verand raises the sentence rather than deciding it. The line buys you nothing that applying the same income criteria to every applicant does not.

Does it matter that a draft was written with AI?

The statute asks who made, printed or published the statement, or caused it to be. It does not ask what typed it. Whoever put it out answers for what it says, exactly as if an agency had written it. What changes is where the effort goes: producing the words stops being the work, and reading them becomes it.

Sources

Where every line came from

Primary sources only. Quoted phrases on this page are the statute's or the regulation's own words. Everything else is our rendering, worth checking against the text rather than taking our word for it.

142 U.S.C. §3604(c), the Fair Housing Act's advertising subsection. Cornell Legal Information Institute 224 CFR §100.75, discriminatory advertisements and notices. Cornell Legal Information Institute 342 U.S.C. §3607(b), housing for older persons. Cornell Legal Information Institute 442 U.S.C. §3603(b), the exemptions. Cornell Legal Information Institute 561 FR 14378, Docket FR-4029-F-01, effective May 1, 1996: HUD removes 24 CFR Part 109, the Advertising Guidelines. Federal Register 624 CFR §180.671, civil penalties, as last adjusted at 90 FR 24748, June 12, 2025. Cornell Legal Information Institute 742 U.S.C. §3613(a), the two-year suit, with §3610(a) for the one-year complaint. Cornell Legal Information Institute

Paragraph letters are to 24 CFR §100.75 unless another rule is named. Both compliance packs behind the checks above are AI-researched from these sources and pending operator review. Last checked September 17, 2026. Not legal advice.

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