Secretary Turner took action to make housing more affordable by rescinding burdensome guidance that made building, buying, and renting a home more expensive.
HUD issued new guidance applying the Fair Housing Act’s statute of limitations to claims alleging violations of the Act’s design and construction requirements. This replaces a flawed Obama-era legal interpretation and properly enforces the Fair Housing Act’s statute of limitations, preventing unnecessary red tape that burdens builders and passes costs to homebuyers and renters.
During the last five years, as a result of the previous guidance, over $110 million in onerous repair costs were imposed on building owners, regardless of whether they contributed to any alleged design and construction violations.
“For too long, unnecessary government policies have contributed to the skyrocketing cost of building, buying, and renting a home. Today’s action rescinds unnecessary and expensive liability created by legal theories that have no basis in law,” said HUD Secretary Scott Turner. “The Trump Administration is following the law as written by Congress and interpreted by the courts. We will continue to repeal and replace guidance that does not honor these lawful commitments while ensuring Americans can access affordable housing.”
“Congress wrote a clear statute of limitations into the Fair Housing Act. That limitation is part of the law, not a suggestion for sly bureaucrats to disregard,” said Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Craig Trainor. “We will not allow Obama-era guidance to rewrite the Fair Housing Act, expose American builders to indefinite legal liability, and make housing less affordable for hardworking American families.”
Read the new guidance here.