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Brokers to pay $10K to settle claim of bias against family with young children

E-mail|Link|Comments () June 18, 2009 05:12 PM

By Globe Staff

The attorney general's office has reached a $10,000 settlement with two Brookline real estate brokers who refused to show an apartment to a family with young children.

The attorney general's office claimed that Geoffrey Wells, owner of Harvard Real Estate of Brookline, and one of his employees, David Ravalli, had violated both lead paint laws and antidiscrimination laws.

A consent judgment signed Tuesday by a Norfolk Superior Court judge requires the defendants to pay the family $10,000 and prohibits the brokers from discriminating against any person seeking housing. The judgment also requires, among other things, that the brokers be trained on fair housing and antidiscrimination laws.

"Under Massachusetts law, it is illegal to discriminate against someone because they have children or because the presence of children might trigger a property owner's duties under the lead paint laws," Attorney General Martha Coakley said in a statement.

The complaint was first filed in October 2007 in Norfolk Superior Court. Authorities alleged that the men refused to show an apartment because it hadn't been deleaded, attorney general's spokesman Grant Woodman said. The complaint also alleges that the discrimination was confirmed by two testers from the Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston, who posed as people with young families.

Neither Wells nor Ravalli could be reached for comment. Under the agreement, they did not admit responsibility.