Coldwell Banker to Adopt New Policies After Incident with Jamaica Plain Agent

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Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage has agreed to implement fair housing training and adopt new antidiscrimination policies to resolve allegations that it discriminated against families with children in housing rentals, Attorney General Maura Healey announced Wednesday.

According to the assurance of discontinuance filed Wednesday in Suffolk Superior Court, Matthew Gore, an agent of Coldwell Banker in Jamaica Plain, posted several rental advertisements on Craigslist.org that discouraged applications from families with children. Subsequent fair housing tests conducted by the Suffolk University Housing Discrimination Testing Program found that Gore had engaged in a pattern of discrimination by indicating to prospective tenants with children that landlords had expressed unwillingness to delead their properties.

A recent press release indicated that under the terms of the settlement, Gore and certain agents of Coldwell Banker will attend training on fair housing and lead laws. Coldwell Banker will also adopt a comprehensive antidiscrimination policy that will be posted and distributed to agents in all of its Massachusetts offices. To ensure compliance with the settlement, Coldwell Banker will submit to future fair housing tests conducted by the Suffolk University Housing Discrimination Testing Program.