Obama forces political-correctness on landlords

In What You Must Know BEFORE Becoming a Greedy Landlord, I included a section on tenant selection. I wrote:

Most people are honest and hardworking. And I’d venture to say that 96 percent would be terrific tenants. But you need to screen them all to sort out the 4 percent who are potential problems. 

My biggest concern is getting stuck with a tenant who has a history of destroying previous rentals or not paying the rent. And I tell them upfront that if this type of thing shows up, the deal is dead. The tenant pays the background-check fee and gets it back if they pass.

If you are a landlord or plan to buy a rental property, you should know that you cannot base tenant selection solely on race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin or disability.

Now the Obama administration says that refusing to rent to someone with a criminal record could be a form of intentional discrimination and could get you in legal hot water.

First, the facts

As many as 100 million U.S. adults — or nearly one-third of the population — have a criminal record of some sort. Our prison population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world. As of 2012, the U.S. accounted for only about five percent of the world’s population, yet almost one quarter of the world’s prisoners were held in American prisons.

African Americans and Hispanics are arrested, convicted and incarcerated at rates disproportionate to their share of the general population. Across all age groups, the imprisonment rates for African American males is almost six times greater than for White males, and for Hispanic males, it is over twice that for non-Hispanic White males.

Now, Obama’s rationale

President Obama and HUD have concluded that based on the above facts, criminal records create barriers to housing that are likely to have a disproportionate impact on minority home seekers.

What all this means, as I interpret it, is that if you exclude someone because of a prior conviction, you must be able to prove that it was necessary to achieve a substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interest. What’s more, you must apply the same standard to rental applicants of all races and colors.

You can read HUD’s April 4, 2016, guidelines regarding the use of criminal records for landlords here.

The sad thing is that this has nothing to do with fixing our broken criminal justice system or the fact that there are too many attorneys running around lose.

It’s simply shoving political correctness down the throats of hardworking Americans who invest their time and money to provide a decent home at a fair price for others to live.  

And Congressman Dan Donovan (R-NY) thinks it’s wrong, too. He blasted HUD’s guidelines in an April 26, letter to Secretary Julian Castro. You can read it here.

The bottom line is that I can deal with someone who has had problems with the law. Everyone deserves a second or third chance. But whether I rent to them should be a decision I make based on what the background check reveals and my gut instincts … not what Obama and Washington bureaucrats determine is correct for my business.  

File-and-suspend on Obama’s Hit List

File-and-suspend has become a popular strategy for married couples who want to get the most from their Social Security benefits. It lets them earn credits for delayed filing and bring in some Social Security income while they wait.

Here is the most common way to use file-and-suspend:

The spouse with the higher benefit files at his or her full retirement age (FRA), then immediately files a notice to suspend payment of those benefits. That permits the spouse with the lower primary insurance amount (PIA) to file for a spousal benefit, which is equal to half the higher earner’s benefit.

That gets some income flowing to the household while the higher earner continues to accrue higher benefits. The higher earner can wait until age 70 to begin benefits; the lower earner then converts to his or her own full benefit.

The couple receives higher individual benefits for the rest of their lives. If the husband dies first, the widow then converts to a survivor benefit, equal to 100 percent of her spouse’s benefit. 

But the White House has proposed eliminating it on grounds that it’s a loophole mainly benefiting upper-income households. So if you’ve been thinking about filing and suspending your Social Security benefits, you better do it while you still can.