2026-09-27 · Federal · Regulation

What happened. HUD's Office of General Counsel published notice on July 17, 2026 that it has withdrawn 13 Fair Housing Act guidance documents, effective September 25, 2025. The documents “should not be relied upon as authoritative” and “have been removed from the HUD.gov website.”¹

What was withdrawn

HUD said it withdrew guidance that “is not statutorily prescribed,” is “inconsistent with relevant statutes or regulations,” or “imposes additional compliance burdens.” The list includes:¹

• the 2016 Office of General Counsel guidance on applying Fair Housing Act standards to the use of criminal records by housing providers;
• the 2016 HUD–DOJ joint statement on state and local land-use laws and the Fair Housing Act;
• the 2014 “Elements of Proof” memorandum;
• the 2021 memorandum applying Bostock to the Fair Housing Act;
• the 2024 guidance on source-of-income restrictions;
• the 1990 HUD–DOJ enforcement memorandum of understanding.

HUD stated that “new internal and external guidance will be issued where necessary and appropriate.”

Where it touches associations

The 2016 criminal-records guidance was the document most often cited in disputes over association leasing rules that screen tenants or buyers by criminal history, and it rested on a disparate-impact analysis. Its withdrawal removes HUD's published benchmark; it does not change the Fair Housing Act, HUD's regulations, or court decisions interpreting them. HUD's discriminatory-effects rule, on which that guidance relied, is itself the subject of a pending repeal proposal.² State and local fair-housing laws, including local criminal-history ordinances, are unaffected.

What to watch next

• Any replacement guidance from HUD.
• Whether courts continue to cite the withdrawn documents as persuasive authority.

Related: HUD proposes wider disparate-impact rollback, comments due October 9.

1. HUD, Withdrawal of Guidance Documents, 91 FR 44867 (July 17, 2026), FR Doc. 2026-14432 ↩
2. HUD, supplemental proposed rule, 91 FR 51416 (Aug. 10, 2026) ↩