Massachusetts Real Estate Broker Exam — All Questions

Which characteristic does Massachusetts housing law protect that the federal Fair Housing Act does not?

• a.The presence of children who will occupy the rented premises
• b.A tenant's national origin or the country where she was born
• c.A tenant's receipt of a public rental assistance subsidy✓
• d.A tenant's religious creed or the congregation she belongs to

M.G.L. c.151B s.4(10) makes it unlawful for a person furnishing credit, services, or rental accommodations to discriminate against a recipient of federal, state, or local public assistance or against a tenant receiving a housing subsidy such as rental assistance, or because of any requirement of that program. There is no federal counterpart, which is why source-of-income cases are brought under state law. National origin, familial status, and religion are all federal protected classes and are protected in Massachusetts too, so none of them distinguishes the two schemes. Massachusetts also adds age, ancestry, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, and veteran or armed forces status to the federal list.

Which Massachusetts rental falls outside the reach of the state's main housing discrimination provision?

• a.A single apartment in a two-family house that the owner occupies✓
• b.A single apartment in a twelve-unit building the owner occupies
• c.A single-family house that the owner rents out through a broker
• d.A single apartment in a three-family house the owner has left

M.G.L. c.151B s.4(7) carries an express proviso that the subsection shall not apply to the leasing of a single apartment or flat in a two family dwelling, the other occupancy unit of which is occupied by the owner as his residence. Both halves matter: two units, and the owner living in the other one. A twelve-unit building is a multiple dwelling covered by s.4(6), and owner occupancy does not exempt it. A three-family house has too many units and, on these facts, no resident owner. And a single-family house rented through a broker is not exempt either, because the involvement of a licensee is precisely the circumstance the fair housing provisions are written to reach.

How long does a Massachusetts tenant have to bring a housing discrimination complaint to the Commission Against Discrimination?

• a.One hundred eighty days after the alleged act of discrimination
• b.Two years after the alleged act of discrimination
• c.Ninety days after the alleged act of discrimination
• d.Three hundred days after the alleged act of discrimination✓

M.G.L. c.151B s.5 states that any complaint filed under the section must be so filed within three hundred days after the alleged act of discrimination. The shorter periods offered are familiar from other schemes and are the reason this figure gets tested: a licensee who assumes the federal ninety or one hundred eighty day habits will misadvise a client about a live claim. Two years overshoots the administrative window, though it should not be confused with the separate period for a court action under s.9. Filing matters to a broker for a further reason: a final Commission finding against a licensee carries consequences for the license itself, quite apart from anything the Commission awards the complainant.

A tenant with a disability needs a bathroom doorway widened in a Massachusetts building of twelve units. Who bears the cost?

• a.The tenant, because a modification is always at the tenant's own expense
• b.The owner, because the building has ten or more dwelling units✓
• c.The town, from the accessibility fund the state building code sets up
• d.Neither, because a landlord may simply refuse a structural modification

M.G.L. c.151B s.4(7A) makes refusing to permit a reasonable modification a form of handicap discrimination, and it splits the cost by building type. The general rule places the expense on the handicapped person, but the statute then provides that in publicly assisted housing, multiple dwelling housing of ten or more units, or contiguously located housing of ten or more units, the reasonable modification shall be at the expense of the owner. A twelve-unit building sits above that line, so the answer that makes the tenant pay in every case states the federal default rather than the Massachusetts rule. There is no municipal accessibility fund in the building code. And outright refusal is the conduct the subsection prohibits.