The 55-or-older exemption requires routine age verification procedures, updated at least every two years, with seven named forms of reliable documentation

xp.fair_housing.hopa_age_verification_procedures_and_biennial_update · v1.0.0

A facility claiming the 55-or-older exemption must be able to produce, in response to a complaint, verification of compliance with the 80 percent test through reliable surveys and affidavits. It must have developed procedures for routinely determining the occupancy of each unit, including whether at least one occupant is 55 or older, and those procedures may be part of a normal leasing arrangement. The procedures must provide for regular updates of the information occupants supplied, through surveys or other means, and those updates must take place AT LEAST ONCE EVERY TWO YEARS. Seven forms of documentation are named as reliable: a driver's licence, birth certificate, passport, immigration card, military identification, any other official document containing a birth date of comparable reliability, or a certification in a lease, application, affidavit or other document signed by any household member aged 18 or older asserting that at least one person in the unit is 55 or older. Any one of these is adequate provided it contains specific information about current age or date of birth. The facility must establish and maintain policies requiring occupants to comply, and where occupants of a unit refuse, the facility may treat the unit as having a 55-or-older occupant if it has sufficient evidence -- government records such as a local household census, or prior forms or applications.

Confidence

high

Effective from

1999-05-03

Last reviewed

2026-09-07