If you were treated differently in housing

The Fair Housing Act is national. It covers most housing and most housing providers, with limited exceptions that HUD explains. It does not replace your state's landlord–tenant statute. It sits underneath it as a discrimination rule that applies in every state.

States and cities frequently add protected classes the federal list does not name — source of income, immigration status, survivor status, age, marital status, and others. Whether any extra class applies is a local question. HUD still takes complaints under federal law even when a city has its own ordinance.

• The date, time, place, and who was present for each conversation or showing.
• What was said, as close to word-for-word as you can, and who said it.
• Ads, listings, applications, and written messages — keep originals and screenshots.
• Whether a unit was later offered to someone else, if you know.
• Any request you made related to disability, and the response.

HUD accepts housing-discrimination complaints online, by mail, and by phone. Filing is free. HUD describes the process on its own pages: what happens after a complaint is filed, how investigation works, and that some complaints are dual-filed with a state or local fair-housing agency.

There are time limits for filing. Those limits are federal and sometimes local, and they run from when the discrimination happened — which is why writing the dates down today matters more than waiting to become sure.