HUD Imposes One-Year Filing Deadline on Fair Housing Accessibility Complaints

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has sharply limited how long people have to file accessibility complaints over multifamily housing, announcing on Sept. 1 that administrative claims alleging violations of the Fair Housing Act's design and construction requirements must now be filed within one year of a building's initial certificate of occupancy. The guidance, issued in an Aug. 31 memo from the agency's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, took effect immediately.

The change reclassifies design and construction accessibility violations as discrete acts that end when construction is complete, rather than continuing violations that last as long as an inaccessible feature remains. It rescinds a 2013 interpretation under which HUD accepted complaints at any time while a building stayed out of compliance. The Fair Housing Act requires basic accessibility features, including step-free entrances, wheelchair-wide doors, reachable controls and reinforced bathroom walls, in buildings with four or more units first occupied after March 13, 1991.

HUD said the prior guidance imposed more than $110 million in repair costs on builders over the past five years. The National Association of Home Builders welcomed the change for providing greater certainty to developers and limiting liability for owners who were not involved in original construction, while the National Fair Housing Alliance condemned it, with executive vice president Nikitra Bailey saying it provides a pass to bad actors who locked people with disabilities out of housing. Disability-related complaints account for more than half of all housing discrimination cases, according to the alliance.

Advocates say the practical effect is that most claims are now time-barred: nearly every covered building received its certificate of occupancy more than a year ago, and the deadline can expire before a resident ever encounters a barrier. The memo is not a law or regulation and did not go through public comment, and HUD said the underlying accessibility requirements are unchanged, along with the right to sue in court, the attorney general's enforcement authority and state and local fair housing laws. The agency said it believes court deadlines should also start at certificate of occupancy, though judges have ruled differently across the country.

The move continues a broader retreat from federal disability enforcement positions, and advocates point to separate state and local protections and reasonable accommodation rights as remaining avenues for residents of inaccessible buildings. Watch for litigation over whether courts adopt HUD's interpretation of when the statute of limitations begins.