Can I prohibit a purchase by a homosexual when I list my home for sale?
For personal reasons, a Maryland home owner does not wish to sell his home to homosexual buyers. He further commented that he looked a HUD Fair Housing Poster and did not see homosexuals listed as a protected class. What advice should be provided by the listing agent?
Let’s hope that we are never asked this question in Maryland since there has been so much publicity about the approval of same-sex marriages. The Federal law has a number of protected classes that should be red flags in our minds when we discuss housing discrimination. The Federal protected classes are color, familial status, national origin, physical or mental disability, race, religion and sex. In the Federal context, race means male or female. Homosexuality is not mentioned.
However, there are state and local laws that further protect consumers from housing discrimination. In Maryland, the Federal classes are certainly protected and there are two additional protected classes. The additional State protected classes are marital status and sexual orientation. The marital status protection refers to the state of being single, married, separated, divorced or widowed. The sexual orientation protection refers to the identification of an individual as to male or female homosexuality, heterosexuality or bisexuality.
The home owner that had thoughts of excluding homosexuals as a class of purchasers needs to understand that the exclusion would not be legal and the listing agent could not comply with the request.
Local laws offer additional layers of fair housing protection for consumers. Under Montgomery County, MD law, a person cannot be discriminated against because of race, color, religious creed, ancestry, national origin, sex, marital status, disability, presence of children, family responsibilities, source of income, sexual orientation, gender identity or age.
Orchid, Brookside Gardens IMG_2610
Photograph by Roy Kelley using a Canon PowerShot G11 camera.
Roy and Dolores Kelley Photographs
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