Nov 12
2025
Real estate firm settles housing discrimination lawsuit
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The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has settled a lawsuit filed earlier this year against a Western New York real estate agent accused of racial steering, a practice that violates local and federal fair housing laws.
The organization accused Avant Realty founder Charles Glander of directing white homebuyers away from “unsafe” neighborhoods on Buffalo’s predominantly Black East Side, “a practice he did not apply for Black homebuyers,” according to a statement the Legal Defense Fund issued in January.
The Legal Defense Fund — representing Housing Opportunities Made Equal, a nonprofit watchdog organization — in April reached a settlement with Glander that included a $10,000 payment to Housing Opportunities Made Equal, as well as a two-year agreement for the organization to provide additional training to Avant Realty’s staff on fair housing laws and ongoing monitoring to ensure the company’s use of best practices. The real estate company also agreed to adopt a non-discrimination policy.
Glander told Investigative Post that he could not comment as part of a non-disparagement agreement, but court filings show that Glander and Avant Realty denied wrongdoing as part of the settlement agreement.
Glander’s previous legal counsel said that some of his conversations had been taken out of context and that his business practices were never racially discriminatory.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomThis is the latest development in housing discrimination lawsuits and settlements this year in the city.
HOME settled another housing discrimination case in April against Buffalo Management Group, whose president and employees were accused of refusing to rent to families in the Fruit Belt area and giving preferential treatment to working professionals and students in the city’s medical corridor.
The City of Buffalo, in a rare move, in March filed a housing discrimination case against a landlord and his property manager who were accused of failing to make accommodations for a tenant and her underaged son who both had upper respiratory issues. The lawsuit claimed the landlord’s refusal to remediate mold exposure in the home constituted an “unlawful refusal of reasonable accommodations following notification of a medical disease or disability.”
Morenike Fajana, the Legal Defense Fund’s senior counsel, said in a statement that the settlement between HOME and Avant Realty was “a win for the Black residents of Buffalo.”
“[W]here you live matters and impacts every aspect of your life — from access to good jobs and high-performing schools, to safe streets and access to quality health care,” Fajana said.
The lawsuit was based on a years-long investigation of several real estate agencies that HOME performed in partnership with the Buffalo Niagara Association of Realtors to look into discriminatory practices in Buffalo’s real estate market.
HOME claimed that Glander offered limited options to HOME’s Black testers, discussing four neighborhoods per meeting with Black homebuyers and 10 neighborhoods with white homebuyers.
HOME attorney Daniel Corbitt previously told Investigative Post that the organization tried to have talks with members of Avant Realty to prevent a lawsuit from being filed, but that early discussions were not amicable.
“We gave them plenty of opportunities to work with us. Let’s sit down. Let’s resolve this,” Corbitt said in January. “But when folks are just not interested in doing that, they want to maintain the status quo — well, we’re not going to accept that.”
The Legal Defense Fund’s interest in Buffalo was driven by the city’s history of segregation.
Investigative Post previously analyzed banks and other mortgage lenders and found that Black applicants are twice as likely to be denied a home mortgage as the overall population in Erie and Niagara counties, even when income wasn’t a factor.
“This is one of the mechanisms that keep us segregated and unequal in Western New York. The real estate industry, historically and to this day, has been, frankly, part of the problem,” Corbitt said.
