TCPA and Fair Housing compliance for AI in real estate: a broker’s guide
AI that texts and calls consumers must follow TCPA consent and quiet-hours rules, and every conversation must stay inside Fair Housing lines. Here is what brokers need to verify before turning any AI loose on leads.
The short answer
Any AI that texts or calls consumers on your behalf operates under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) — consent, identification, quiet hours, and instant opt-out handling — and everything it says must comply with the Fair Housing Act: no steering, no answering questions about neighborhood demographics, no language that could indicate preference by protected class. The brokerage carries the liability, so verify the vendor's controls before go-live. This is general information, not legal advice — confirm specifics with your attorney.
The TCPA checklist
- Consent: leads must have provided their number through a form or interaction that establishes consent to be contacted. Purchased cold lists are a different (riskier) regime.
- Identification: the AI should identify itself and the brokerage in the first touch.
- Quiet hours: federal rules restrict calls/texts to 8 AM–9 PM in the *consumer's* time zone; some states are stricter.
- Opt-out: a STOP reply must halt all outreach immediately, across every channel, permanently.
- Records: every message, timestamp, and consent source should be logged and exportable — your defense file if a complaint ever lands.
The Fair Housing lines an AI must never cross
A well-built AI declines and redirects questions like "Is this a safe neighborhood?" or "What kind of people live here?" — answering with objective, verifiable data sources (crime-data websites, school-rating services) rather than characterizations. It must never steer a buyer toward or away from an area based on protected characteristics, and its property-matching logic must run on stated criteria only: budget, beds, commute, schools by rating.
Questions to ask your AI vendor
- Show me the exact first message. Does it identify the AI and the brokerage?
- What happens at 9:01 PM in the lead's time zone?
- Show me a transcript where a lead asked a steering question. What did the AI say?
- How fast does STOP take effect, and does it cover all channels?
- Can I export the full conversation and consent log at any time?
Livia was built with these controls as defaults, not add-ons — quiet-hour enforcement, instant multi-channel opt-out, Fair Housing guardrails in the conversation layer, and full logging into your CRM.