1. First and foremost, be careful that you do not apply different eligibility requirements or income guidelines to applicants based on their belonging to a certain group.  

2. Do not ask a person verbally or in writing about their race, age, what country they are from, what their religion is, sex, marital status, or disabilities.   Even asking for a man to help with maintenance, do yard work, etc. will get you in hot water.  Since women, or people with disabilities could also do this work, you should say “qualified person needed” to do these jobs.  

3. Never inform a person the property has been rented when it has not.  

4. If you own a large property, encouraging members of the same protected class to occupy only certain portions of the building is also wrong. Example: trying to keep a certain floor for  families with children, pets, above a certain age, or nationality.   

5. If you only process certain applications you can also get in trouble.  For example, say you have found senior citizens to be a good group so you only process retired couples.  This can be a violation of Fair Housing regulations. 

6. Do not tell applicants that the number of people in their family exceeds your limit for the number of occupants, when in fact, the number meets or is under HUD guidelines. 

7. Do not give different facts to different people such as: vacancy dates, or when a property is available, or what the move-in costs are, etc.