From the Legal Hotline (1-877-NEWS-LAW)
Q. You’ve helped us in the past to make sure we don’t violate fair housing laws.
When we’ve let clients know that they can’t discriminate in advertising, they tend to ask if they can question potential tenants. What should our response be to this? Also do you have an overall guide to the fair housing laws?
A. When screening potential tenants under fair housing laws, the landlord can ask questions about their rental history, employment status, income, credit history, number of occupants, and any pets they may have; essentially, anything that directly relates to their ability to pay rent and be a responsible tenant, while avoiding questions about protected characteristics like race, religion, national origin, sex, disability, familial status, or age.
Here are some rules of thumb: Only ask questions that are directly related to a tenant’s ability to fulfill the lease agreement. Apply criteria consistently. Use the same screening process for every applicant, ensuring fairness and avoiding discrimination. Avoid sensitive questions. Do not ask about things like marital status, age, or health conditions that are not relevant to tenancy. Here is what not to ask a potential tenant: what is your nationality or ethnicity? Are you married? Do you have any disabilities? Are you pregnant or planning to have children? What is your religion?
An overall guide to fair housing laws can be found on our website and here.
Q. Our paper is preparing to accept public notice ads, and I want to make sure we are qualified and have everything covered. We are a periodical, weekly print newspaper, which launched a few years ago. We plan to implement an online submission form and will add a public notice link to our home page where readers can view the notices without needing to purchase a subscription and log in.
I have a few questions: is 70 cents/column inch for the first insertion and 40 cents for the second submission a required rate? Is there a minimum or maximum rate? Do we need to obtain a certificate that says we are qualified to run public notices? I saw an example of such on the FPA website. Is there a standard template for the affidavit required after publication? Anything else I haven’t mentioned that we need to know?
A. Some of the information on our website was created after the new public notice law was passed a few years ago. Unfortunately, this law was later replaced with a less favorable law that exists today so some of the information is out of date and needs to be removed.
To answer your questions, the 70 cents etc. language was created years ago and most if not all papers do not use that rate. Rather, they rely on the “regular established minimum commercial rate” language, which is usually the lowest rate on your rate card. That rate can be used.
We created marketing tools a while back that have different “ad bugs” that indicate your paper is qualified to run legals. Is that what you are talking about when you refer to “certificates?” There is no legal requirement I’m aware of that requires you to obtain a certificate.
Regarding affidavits, there is uniform affidavit language contained in Florida law (Chapter 50) that you should follow. You can try googling this but if you have any problems just let me know and I can forward to you.
Of course, you’ll need to upload your notices to our statewide site publicnotices.com—we can help if you have any questions.
Q. We have an applicant proposing work on salary with exempt status. I just wanted to confirm that the minimum annual salary to qualify for exempt salary status is $35,568 annually.
A. Yes, that is the minimum amount. The Department of Labor had previously announced a rule that would have raised the minimum salary however a federal judge in Texas blocked the increase, leaving the above threshold in place