(a) Every provision in an oral agreement or a written instrument relating to real property that purports to forbid or restrict the conveyance, encumbrance, occupancy or lease thereof to individuals of a specified race, color, creed, religion, sex or national origin is void.

Terms Used In Tennessee Code 4-21-604

  • Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). Source: OCC
  • National origin: includes the national origin of an ancestor. See Tennessee Code 4-21-102
  • Property: includes both personal and real property. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • Real property: includes buildings, structures, real estate, lands, tenements, leaseholds, cooperatives, condominiums, and hereditaments, corporeal and incorporeal, or any interest in these. See Tennessee Code 4-21-102
  • Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
  • Sex: means and refers only to the designation of an individual person as male or female as indicated on the individual's birth certificate. See Tennessee Code 4-21-102
  • written: includes printing, typewriting, engraving, lithography, and any other mode of representing words and letters. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
(b) Every condition, restriction or prohibition, including a right of entry or possibility of reverter, that directly or indirectly limits the use or occupancy of real property on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, sex or national origin is void, except a limitation of use on the basis of religion of real property held by a religious institution or organization or by a religious or charitable organization operated, supervised, or controlled by a religious institution or organization, and used for religious or charitable purposes.
(c) It is a discriminatory practice to insert in a written instrument relating to real property a provision that is void under this section or to honor or attempt to honor such a provision in the chain of title.