As a landlord, you will want to know that your tenants will look after your property well. You may have been happy to rent to a young professional couple. You know they can pay the rent and are beyond the age where parties can get out of hand and leave the place a mess.
Yet that might change once you discover they are about to have a baby. As charming as babies and young children can be, they are not the best at looking after things. They may see your freshly painted wall as the ideal place for their latest crayon drawing. Or a dining table as the perfect place to carve patterns with a fork. Can you ask the couple to leave, or tell them you need to raise the rent?
You cannot charge someone more just because they have a child
Housing laws make clear that you cannot treat tenants or potential tenants differently because of their family situation. So, you cannot up the rent or ask a couple to leave because they have a baby.
But what if you made it clear from the outset you did want to rent to families?
If you did this, you are lucky to have gotten away with it. A New York court could consider it discrimination and take action against you because of it. You are not even allowed to subtly suggest you do not want kids in your property.
If you are unsure about housing laws or about how to recover the cost of the damages a child caused to your property, it’s wise to get legal assistance before doing anything. Inadvertently breaching a law could complicate things further.
