FREE 3-Hour Seminar with Vena Jones-Cox
Explore the best ways for landlords, flippers, new investors and old pros to make money in the “new” market
Free Training Dates & Locations:
September 20th, 6:00PM-9:00PM Dayton, OH GDREIA,
September 28th, 6:00PM-9:00PM Cleveland OH Greater Cleveland REIA
September 30th, 9:00AM-12:00PM, Akron/Canton OH Stark County REIA and ACREIA
October 5th, 6:00PM-9:00PM, Nashville TN REIN
October 7th, 9:00AM-12:00PM, Cincinnati OH REIAGC
October 9th, 6:00PM-9:00PM, Cincinnati OH REIAGC
October 10th, 6:00PM-9:00PM, Indianapolis IN CIREIA
October 13th, 9:00AM-12:00PM, Cincinnati OH REIAGC
October 13th, 1:00PM-4:00PM, Cincinnati OH REIAGC
October 14th, 9:00AM-12:00PM, Columbus OH COREE
October 16th, 6:00-9:00PM, Columbus OH COREE
Click HERE for more information and to register.
Click HERE
November 9-12, 2017
Great Wolf Lodge
Cincinnati, OH
A Bittersweet Victory
in the
Helen Grybosky
“Fair Housing” Case
The long, painful saga of Conneaut widow Helen Grybosky was finally settled last month in a win for Ms. Gryboski, but a draw for the rest of us.
For those who haven’t followed Ms. Grybosky’s case, a more complete summary is available in the legislative matters secin below. But the 20,000 foot overview is this: in 2008, Ms. Grybowsky a then-78 year old owner of a 3-family in Northeast Ohio, became embroiled in a nearly decade-long battle with a private fair housing organization that claimed she had discriminated against ‘testers’ (people not actually seeking housing, but rather paid to ‘discover’ discrimination by presenting various scenarios to housing providers and seeing how they react).
After refusing to pay the $6,500 demanded by the fair housing group, she was the subject of an Ohio Civil Rights Commission hearing where she was initially told that she would have to pay over $100,000, mostly in legal fees to the Attorney General. That figure was later amended to just over $10,000, but Ms. Grybosky, believing that she had not denied housing to anyone, sued the OCRC in common pleas court.
COREE members, through OREIA, were instrumental in raising over $15,000 for her legal defense over the past 5 years, and the case has reached its conclusion: it’s been dismissed by the court because of what basically comes down to a technicality: one of the documents submitted early in the case was not submitted under oath. You can read the full opinion of the court here:
https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/11/2017/2017-Ohio-7125.pdf
Because of this error, the court did not rule on the other issues relating to whether testing is a legitimate means to incriminate housing providers or any of the other claims that might have made fair housing fairer.
So while some in the blogosphere have declared this a victory, it’s only one in a personal sense for Helen Grybosky. She certainly deserves it, after carrying the standard in this fight for so long, but unfortunately it has no effect on the still vague and unfairly weighted area of fair housing law for the rest of us.
We appreciate the tenacity of Ms. Grybosky and her attorney, Tarin Hale in fighting for our rights as housing providers, and the financial support from OREIA's members in raising over $15,000 for the legal bills involved in the case. We look forward to the next opportunity to fight these anti-landlord regulations and to make fair housing truly fair to everyone