Fair Housing Act The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban
Development (HUD) issued a statement of policy describing the
guidelines it will use in evaluating occupancy limits to
determine whether they comply with the Fair Housing Act's
prohibition on familial status discrimination. The guidelines
effective date was December 18, 1998 and places as standard a
March 29, 1991 memo that is referred to as "The Keating Memo."
This memo states that HUD believes that an occupancy policy of
two persons in a bedroom, as a general rule, is reasonable under
the Fair Housing Act. However, the memo also states that the
reasonableness of any occupancy policy is rebuttable, and should
not imply that they will evaluate compliance solely on the
number of people permitted in each bedroom. Rather, it believes
that in appropriate circumstances, owners and managers may
develop and implement reasonable occupancy requirements based on
factors such as the number and size of sleeping areas or
bedrooms and the overall size of the dwelling