Discrimination In Housing

The housing division of Ohio's civil rights chapter lists the protected classes and then lists the conduct. It is unlawful to refuse to sell, transfer, assign, rent, lease, sublease or finance housing accommodations, or to deny or make unavailable housing accommodations, because of race, colour, religion, sex, military status, familial status, ancestry, disability or national origin.

• §ORC 4112.02

One specific practice is named on its own: representing to any person that housing accommodations are not available for inspection, sale or rental when in fact they are available, because of a protected characteristic. That is the sentence that describes being told a unit is taken and then seeing it advertised the following week.

• §ORC 4112.02

Familial status is the one most people do not know is in the list, and it is the ground underneath a refusal aimed at a household with children. Disability carries its own set of obligations elsewhere in the chapter, including on modifications and on accommodations, which this page does not reach.

• §ORC 4112.02

How a complaint is filed, the deadline for filing one, what the Ohio Civil Rights Commission does with it, the separate federal fair housing route, the exemptions for certain owner occupied and small properties, and the disability provisions on reasonable modifications and accommodations are in the chapter and in federal law, and are not on this page. Nothing here says whether particular conduct was discriminatory, which turns on evidence. The Ohio Civil Rights Commission takes housing complaints, local fair housing agencies operate in most Ohio cities, and a licensed Ohio attorney is who advises on a specific case.

• §ORC 4112.02