Landlord rights and obligations

[smoterh.livejournal.com]


I'm a landlord-occupant in a 2 family home and I'm looking for new tenants. I've had a lot of responses to my craigslist ad (as of now I'm doing 15 showings this weekend). Since the tenants will live above me, I would like to make sure that the future tenant is the best I can get, so I've kept rent unchanged from previous years and I'm only doing showings this weekend so that each interested party has a chance to see the apartment and fill out an application  which inquires about their financial info and references.

Now, I've been reading up on landlord rights and obligations and the whole section on non-discriminatory practices is kind of scaring me.  I'm I allowed to pick from the pool of applicants, or am I required to rent to the person who first fills out the application/delivers the check first? Or am I obligated to rent to the person whose conditions are protected by the housing laws in the state?

For example, let's say I get an application from a geeky quiet couple with double income that spends weekends in Maine and an application from 83 year old legally blind Mongolian lesbian with 2 kids and a drum set.  Let's say that I choose the geeky couple -- what prevents Martha Coakley from opening a can of whoopass on me  for violating The Massachusetts Fair Housing statute?
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Comments

[in-water-writ.livejournal.com]

Speaking of double-income geeks... would you mind linking to your Craigslist ad?

[smoterh.livejournal.com]

I PM'd you with the link