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A New York state judge struck down part of the state’s Human Rights Law requiring landlords to accept Section 8 vouchers. In an eight-page decision, the judge found the law violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the original action against landlord Jason Fane and his companies on October 31, 2022, seeking more than $300,000 in penalties and a set-aside of “five percent of his residential housing units exclusively for Section 8 vouchers.”...The federal government does not mandate landlord participation in the program but requires landlords who choose to participate to submit their property for inspection to ensure habitability and to allow the government to inspect their business records.The challenged law barred landlords from discriminating against prospective tenants “based on their ‘lawful source of income,'” including Section 8 vouchers, thus making the Section 8 program—and its property and business records inspections—mandatory for New York landlords....Jason Fane (pictured), a landlord based in Ithaca, New York, challenged the law on several grounds. He argued the law, by requiring him to submit to warrantless inspections of his property and business records, violated the Fourth Amendment.Fane also argued the state law conflicted with federal law and was preempted by the latter, that the state law imposed an unlawful retroactive penalty, and that the law amounted to a regulatory taking.Fane ultimately prevailed on his Fourth Amendment claim.
