The Trump administration has rescinded an Obama-era housing policy that it blames for pushing up building, buying and renting costs across the United States. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, working with the Department of Justice, has scrapped a rule that allowed third parties to file accessibility-related complaints over original building design flaws indefinitely, meaning current property owners could be held liable for millions of dollars in retrofit costs for flaws introduced by original builders, even decades earlier and even if the current owner had no involvement in the original construction.

Under the new framework, the time limit for such Fair Housing Act design and construction challenges now starts from the date a building receives its certificate of occupancy, with a one-year deadline for administrative complaints to HUD and a two-year limit for civil lawsuits. HUD says the old policy cost property owners more than $112 million in accessibility retrofits over five years to qualify for federal refinancing, with one inspection firm alone identifying nearly $49 million in required fixes across around 500 deals since 2019, while a major lender attributed over $1 billion in lost loan volume to the rule. HUD Secretary Scott Turner said the change removes "unnecessary and expensive liability" while tenants retain the right to seek individual reasonable modifications under existing Fair Housing Act protections.