IRES Iowa Real Estate Salesperson - Set 5 - Part 3

HUD interprets the Fair Housing Act's ban on sex discrimination to cover sexual orientation; refusing to rent because applicants are a same-sex couple is enforced as discrimination on the basis of sex under the federal statute.
Option a is incorrect because familial status protects families with children and pregnant applicants; the couple's application involves neither, so this category cannot be the vehicle for a claim based on the landlord's objection to sexual orientation.
Option b is incorrect because marital status may be protected by certain state and local laws, but it is not one of the seven federal classes, and HUD instead routes sexual-orientation discrimination through the federal sex protection.
Option c is incorrect because religion protects a person's faith or lack of faith from housing discrimination; the landlord's stated objection concerns sexual orientation rather than the applicants' religious beliefs, so the religion category does not fit these facts.

The National Do Not Call Registry is managed by the Federal Trade Commission and lists telephone numbers of consumers who asked to limit telemarketing calls selling goods or services through interstate calls.
Option a is incorrect because the Federal Communications Commission enforces certain telemarketing and junk-fax rules, but the Do Not Call Registry itself is administered by the FTC; conflating the two agencies attributes the registry to the wrong regulator.
Option b is incorrect because a state real estate commission licenses and disciplines practitioners within its state; it neither maintains a national telemarketing list nor enforces federal do-not-call rules, so it cannot be the registry's manager.
Option d is incorrect because the Department of Housing and Urban Development oversees fair housing and federal housing programs; consumer telemarketing preferences fall entirely outside its mission, making it an implausible steward for the Do Not Call Registry.

HUD enforces the Fair Housing Act's prohibition on sex discrimination to include discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation; denying housing because an applicant is transgender is therefore treated as unlawful discrimination on the basis of sex.
Option b is incorrect because familial status turns on whether a household includes children under eighteen or a pregnant member; the applicant's transgender identity has no connection to the presence of children, so this class does not capture the refusal.
Option c is incorrect because disability requires a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity; being transgender is not itself such an impairment, and HUD channels this protection through the sex category rather than through disability.
Option d is incorrect because national origin addresses discrimination linked to the country a person or their ancestors come from; the manager's decision rests on the applicant's gender identity, which bears no relation to birthplace or ancestry, so this class is inapt.

Suggesting a normal or going rate implies commissions are standardized among firms, creating the impression of price-fixing; brokers must make clear that any rate quoted reflects only their own firm's independent charge.
Option a is incorrect because agency disclosure rules govern how a licensee reveals whom they represent; a comment about prevailing commission rates has nothing to do with disclosing representation, so this misidentifies which body of law the remark implicates.
Option b is incorrect because a fiduciary duty runs from a licensee to a client within a representation relationship; the luncheon comment is directed at competitors, not a client, so no fiduciary obligation is what the remark endangers.
Option d is incorrect because the written agreement rule concerns enforceability of compensation contracts under the statute of frauds; whether a commission promise is in writing is unrelated to the danger of signaling standardized pricing to rival firms.

Familial status protects households with children under eighteen, and the definition expressly includes a pregnant woman and any person in the process of securing legal custody of a child, so both applicants are covered.
Option a is incorrect because sex discrimination concerns treating someone unfavorably because of gender; here the landlord objects to the presence of children rather than to the applicant's gender, so the sex category does not describe this refusal.
Option c is incorrect because national origin covers discrimination tied to the country a person or their ancestors came from; nothing in these facts involves birthplace or ancestry, so this protected class is the wrong fit for a child-based refusal.
Option d is incorrect because disability protects people with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity; neither the pregnant woman nor the father is described as having such an impairment, so disability does not apply here.

Familial status is the seventh federal protected class, covering households with one or more children under eighteen, pregnant women, and anyone securing custody of a child; the Fair Housing Amendments Act added it in 1988.
Option a is incorrect because marital status is protected under some state and local fair housing laws, but it is not one of the seven classes named in the federal Fair Housing Act, so it does not complete the federal list.
Option b is incorrect because age by itself is not a federal protected class; instead the law shields familial status and separately lets qualifying senior housing exclude children, so raw age is not the missing seventh characteristic.
Option c is incorrect because the Fair Housing Act does not bar discrimination based solely on citizenship status, and a landlord may lawfully ask for immigration documentation; citizenship therefore is not among the seven federally protected characteristics.

Price-fixing occurs when competing brokers agree to set commissions, fees, or rates instead of letting the open market determine them; each firm must independently decide its own compensation based on its own business judgment.
Option a is incorrect because a group boycott involves competitors conspiring to withhold business from a targeted firm, not agreeing on prices; here the brokers are coordinating rates between themselves, which is a pricing violation rather than an exclusion.
Option b is incorrect because market allocation would have the brokers dividing territories or customer types between them; they are instead fixing a common price, so the label describing carved-up markets does not capture what they actually agreed to do.
Option d is incorrect because a tie-in arrangement forces a client to accept a second service as a condition of receiving the first; nothing here conditions one product on another, so tying does not describe this straightforward agreement on rates.

Independent contractors pay their own income and Social Security taxes because the broker withholds nothing from their commissions; they also receive no employee benefits such as health insurance or paid vacation from the firm.
Option a is incorrect because the broker withholds taxes only for genuine employees; a contractor arrangement specifically relieves the broker of withholding, shifting the full duty of paying income and Social Security taxes onto the associate.
Option c is incorrect because the real estate commission licenses and disciplines practitioners; it has no role in collecting anyone's federal taxes, so treating it as a tax collector misunderstands both the agency and the contractor relationship.
Option d is incorrect because an MLS exists to pool and market listings among cooperating firms; remitting members' payroll taxes falls completely outside its function, making this option a category error rather than a plausible tax mechanism.

License law makes the employing broker responsible for and liable for the acts of affiliated licensees performed within the scope of employment, no matter how the salesperson is classified for income tax purposes.
Option b is incorrect because the salesperson individually cannot absorb this responsibility because supervisory liability rests with the broker under whose license the salesperson operates; tax classification changes withholding duties, not the licensing chain of accountability.
Option c is incorrect because the client who signed hires representation but never assumes regulatory responsibility for how a licensee performs; that oversight belongs to the supervising broker, so pinning conduct on the client misreads where license law places accountability.
Option d is incorrect because the notion that tax rules erase all liability is simply wrong; someone must always answer to the commission for licensed activity, and license law names the broker as that supervising party.

HUD, through its Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, administers the federal Fair Housing Act; an aggrieved person may file a complaint with HUD within one year of the alleged discriminatory act.
Option a is incorrect because the Department of Justice does enter fair housing enforcement, but only to prosecute a pattern or practice of resistance in federal court; routine individual complaints are received and investigated by HUD, not by the attorney general.
Option b is incorrect because the Federal Trade Commission polices unfair or deceptive trade practices and consumer protection generally, a mandate unrelated to housing discrimination; it has no authority to accept or resolve complaints filed under the Fair Housing Act.
Option c is incorrect because supervising lenders and financial products for compliance with consumer finance laws, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau touches mortgage disclosure rather than housing discrimination complaints, so an aggrieved renter would not turn to it for this remedy.