Housing Discrimination Complaints
Floridians are entitled by law to rent a place to live or buy a home without consideration of their race, color, national origin, sex, disability, familial status, or religion. It is against the law to discriminate in any of the following actions:
Refuse to rent or sell housing
Falsely deny that housing is available for inspection, rental, or sale
Refuse to make a mortgage loan
Impose different conditions or terms on a loan
Threaten, coerce, or intimidate any individual exercising a fair housing right
Refuse reasonable changes to your dwelling to accommodate a disability
Real estate agents, brokers, landlords or anyone in the housing business has violated these laws if they encourage a homeowner to sell or rent with discriminatory intent.
Unless a housing community is complying with the requirements of a 55+ housing community, they cannot deny a family with children under the age of 18 from residing there.
Any person aggrieved by an unlawful housing practice may file a complaint.
The complaint must be filed within 1 year of the date on which the last alleged act of discrimination occurred.
The Commission works cooperatively with its federal counterpart, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and most cases are dual-filed. The Commission may refer your complaint to HUD or another agency for investigation, as applicable. See Jurisdiction Section below for further details.
If you have any questions regarding the filing of a Housing Discrimination Complaint, please call the FCHR for assistance at (850) 488-7082.
Note: If you have filed a Federal HUD complaint, do not proceed with completing an FCHR Housing Discrimination Complaint.
HOUSING DISCRIMINATION QUESTIONNAIRE
Please email, fax, or mail the completed questionnaire to the Office of Customer Service (contact information is listed on the last page of the questionnaire). The Housing Intake Staff will review the information and, if it meets jurisdictional requirements, they will prepare a charge form for your review and signature.
JURISDICTION
The Florida Commission on Human Relations has the authority to conduct Fair Housing discrimination investigations within the state of Florida; however, if a city or county has a local fair housing law which provides rights and remedies for alleged discriminatory housing practices which are substantially equivalent to the rights and remedies provided in sections 760.20-760.37, Florida Statutes, the Commission shall refer the complaint to that local entity to conduct an investigation. The following cities and counties have equivalent fair housing laws, so the Commission will refer complaints it receives from the following cities and/or counties:
City of Orlando Office of Human Relations
City of Tampa Office Human Rights
Jacksonville Human Rights Commission (includes Duval County)
Palm Beach County Office of Equal Opportunity
Pinellas County Office of Human Rights
Broward County Office of Equal Opportunity (Broward County)