Report HOA Discrimination

If you thought you were helpless in the face of HOA discrimination, think again! The US Department of Housing and Urban Development provides a couple ways for you to file a complaint, and they also ensure you will be protected from any sort of retaliation.

You can check out their website--https://www.hud.gov/contactus#ReportIssue to get all the details, but following is a summary of how you may contact HUD so they can help you:

To report discrimination, you may submit a complaint online at (https://portalapps.hud.gov/FHEO903/Form903/Form903Start.action?lang=en) or fill out a paper form letter to be mailed to the nearest HUD office (https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/OCHCO/documents/903.1.pdf).

While HOAs can make some rules about what you can or cannot do with your house or surrounding property, they cannot discriminate in their enforcement. So, for example, if you're being told you can't have a tree on your front lawn, a boat parked next to your house or that you can't paint your house a bright or dark color, if the HOA allows others to do so, but is not permitting you, it's discrimination! And if they are selectively enforcing their rules on certain groups of people, based on their race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, familial status, they are definitely breaking Federal Law!

Be sure to gather as many details as you can--names, dates and places. The more evidence you can provide, the faster your complaint can be assigned to the proper enforcement agency.