Thursday, April 14, 2005 | 10:53 a.m.
The mother of a developmentally disabled woman has filed a lawsuit against a Las Vegas condominium complex saying the complex denied them a condo because of the daughter's disability in violation of federal fair housing law.
The lawsuit was filed Friday against Bella Vita I LLC as well as defendants Ashley Read and Mark Karten.
Read and Karten work for another defendant, Performance Marketing & Advertising Inc., the company that handles the sale of the condos.
Ken Baxter, owner and broker of Performance Marketing & Advertising, denied that Chapman and Rumble were discriminated against. He said Chapman did not qualify for a loan.
"They can still buy; it's not discrimination. We'll sell her the home. All they have to do is be able to pay for the home," he said. "We are happy to have her in our community."
In the lawsuit, Joan Chapman said she and her developmentally disabled daughter, Tania Rumble, visited the Bella Vita condominiums near Flamingo Road and Decatur Boulevard in February and were approved for financing to buy a condo there by Premier Mortgage Lending Group.
The lawsuit said Chapman told Read that she wanted both her name and Rumble's name on the title but that Rumble would be living there alone. Chapman said that's when Read told her there was a problem with Chapman not living with Rumble.
"Everything went through," Chapman said in a phone interview. "All they would tell me is because I wouldn't be living in the condo they were considering it an investment. There was no problem before. It wasn't (until) after they knew she had a disability that they brought it up that they wouldn't sell."
The lawyer who brought the suit summarized his case.
"They simply denied the chance to purchase a condominium because my client was mentally disabled," said David Olshan, a lawyer for the Nevada Fair Housing Center. Olshan also represents the plaintiffs.
The suit alleges the defendants violated the Fair Housing Act, which according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of dwellings, and in other housing-related transactions, based on handicap (disability), race, color, national origin, religion, sex and familial status (including children under the age of 18 living with parents) of legal custodians, pregnant women, and people securing custody of children under the age of 18.
Chapman said in the lawsuit that Read told her to call the mortgage lender Premier Mortgage Lending Group, and a mortgage broker there told her the mortgage would, "have to go through an underwriter." The lawsuit said Chapman never got an explanation from the mortgage company as to the status of her mortgage, but that she tried to go through another mortgage company for financing.
"She got separate funding through another mortgage company," Olshan said. "The thing they told the mortgage broker was Bella Vita was over its quota for investors. Maybe they thought Chapman was investing because she was purchasing the condo for her daughter."
The lawsuit doesn't name Premier Mortgage Lending Group or the broker there as a defendant. Olshan said he didn't include the mortgage company as a defendant because he said the company doesn't have to fund the money if the seller isn't going to sell.
"There's really no obligation to fund a condominium sale when it can't go through," Olshan said. "We never really got the denial from Premier Mortgage, the denial was always from Mark Karten, Performance Marketing & Advertising and Ashley Read. Generally speaking we'd like to get to the source."
The lawsuit said the mortgage broker at the other company Cendant Mortgage contacted Read who told him Bella Vita would not sell to Chapman later told Chapman, "we're not selling to you." Chapman said she also contacted Karten who told her the same thing but wouldn't give a reason.
Olshan said Bella Vita's actions are suspicious.
"People who sell real estate like to sell real estate," he said. "When they say no when you have the money you've got to think there's funny business going on. Circumstantially you have a Fair Housing Act violation."
The lawsuit said Chapman and Rumble have suffered, "humiliation, embarrassment, emotional distress and deprivation of their right to housing on an equal basis with other persons regardless of disability." Chapman is seeking compensatory damages, attorney's fees and costs as well as a court judgment stopping the defendants from breaking fair-housing laws. The suit also seeks a court judgment requiring the defendants to provide housing fairly without regard to disability.
Ed Guthrie, executive director of Opportunity Village, said it is not uncommon for a developmentally disabled person to live alone in a dwelling with or without the guardian's name on the title. He said the nonprofit organization has been active in helping people with disabilities get financing for housing.
"Most of the time it's the individual with the disability, even if they don't have the credit," Guthrie said.
He said if the condo complex has a policy of selling only to people who actually occupy the property then they have to apply that to everyone.
"If I bought a condo and my college son or daughter were living there and I was not, they would have to apply that to me as well," Guthrie said. "It's for everybody not just based upon an individual's disability. The only thing they could do to prove otherwise (is) if they proved that the individual was a danger to herself or others."
Chapman said she is in the process of buying a condominium for her daughter at another complex. She said she wants her daughter to get used to living independently and that she is able to do so with some assistance.
"I'm putting some money down on another condo right now but it's costing a lot more money," Chapman said. "In fact, I had a condo for my daughter in Missouri before we even moved here. It was no problem; she lived there for about eight years."
Chapman said although she is getting another condo for her daughter, Bella Vita and Performance Marketing & Advertising should be stopped from discriminating against people with disabilities.
"There are other people like my daughter," she said. "Where are they going to live? She's very responsible and she's very quiet, she doesn't cause any problems. She deserves to have a normal life like everybody else."
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