Facebook Ads Age Bias Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Real Estate Cos.

A class action lawsuit has been filed against 10 real estate companies, claiming they discriminate against older individuals by excluding them from seeing Facebook advertisements for rental properties.

Plaintiffs Neuhtah Opiotennione and the Housing Rights Initiative say the real estate companies, including Bozzuto Management Co., Greystar Management Services and Ketter Management, among others, routinely and deliberately exclude older people from receiving advertisements on Facebook for dozens of apartment complexes in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.

Opiotennione, a 55-year-old woman living in Washington, D.C., states she was regularly searching for rental housing in the metropolitan area. She says she worked for the Washington public school system and has a housing budget of at least $2,500 per month. 

Opiotennione said she regularly uses Facebook and was interested in receiving information on the social network related to housing opportunities she could seek and apply for and secure. She claims she was completely denied the opportunity to receive the real estate companies’ age-restricted housing ads that were denied to people older than 50.

The rental property class action lawsuit goes on to state the defendants knowingly decided not to advertise their rental properties to older people when they recruited prospective tenants from Facebook because they wanted to steer away older people from their properties and attract younger individuals.

“Acting in unison, these leading residential property management companies distorted and skewed the D.C. metropolitan housing market with age discrimination and made it much harder for older residents to learn about, apply for, and secure suitable rental housing,” Opiotennione goes on to state.

The rental property class action lawsuit points to Bozzuto, which manages more than 75,000 apartments in 11 states and the District of Columbia and is headquartered in Greenbelt.

The plaintiffs allege Bozzuto placed advertisements on Facebook that were only sent to people between the ages of 22 and 40, thus making a conscious choice to deny its advertisements to anyone older than 40. 

Opiotennione says that when the defendants advertise their apartments on Facebook, they rely on the social network’s ad delivery algorithm, which determines which users will receive the ads based on the individual’s age.

“As a result, even when older people are not completely excluded from getting the defendants’ ads, they are routinely denied the defendant’s housing advertisements because of their age and they are often less likely than younger persons to receive those ads,” Opiotennione’s complaint states.

The plaintiffs in the rental property class action lawsuit are seeking a declaration that the defendants’ digital discrimination is unlawful and an injunction to cease these harmful practices in the future.

Opiotennione is also seeking monetary damages for the harm that the defendants have caused and other forms of relief for the named plaintiffs and a potential Class of thousands of other older persons who have been denied housing information and opportunities.

“Unless and until these industry leaders are held accountable for their digital discrimination and are forced to stop ageist advertising, the housing industry may believe that it can act with impunity and in reckless disregard for tenants’ fair-housing rights,” the rental properties class action lawsuit says.

The plaintiffs also state Facebook and the advertisers who publish advertisements on the social networking platform know the age of each Facebook user because Facebook requires users to tell them their birthdates as a condition of joining Facebook and to continue utilizing its services.

In addition, Facebook uses an algorithm and machine learning to determine which people within a particular audience selection will receive a particular advertisement, the plaintiffs say. They claim all advertisers rely on that algorithm when distributing their advertisements on Facebook, including housing advertisements.

The rental properties class action lawsuit goes on to say Facebook’s advertising platform identifies the ages of Facebook users and has encouraged and permitted the defendants and other property management companies to exclude older persons from receiving their advertisements.

The plaintiffs claim that “Defendants have routinely used Facebook to advertise to and recruit prospective tenants for the properties that they manage and rent to tenants in the District of Columbia metropolitan area, including in Montgomery County, Maryland and/or the District of Columbia. … In doing so defendants have routinely used Facebook’s ad platform to exclude older individuals from receiving their housing advertisements based on their age.”

The class action lawsuit states that in addition to excluding older people, the rental properties engaged in age discrimination in their housing advertising on Facebook by including discriminatory statements.

Are you an older person who thinks rental properties discriminate against you in Facebook advertisements? Leave a message in the comments section below.

The plaintiffs are represented by Matthew K. Handley and Rachel Nadas of Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC and Peter Romer-Friedman of Gupta Wessler PLLC.

The Rental Company Advertisement Class Action Lawsuit is Housing Rights Initiative, et al. v. Bozzuto Management Co., et al., Case No. 8:20-cv-01956, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

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