Discrimination in context to Tenancy Agreements

Landlords must not discriminate against tenants because of any of the following reasons:

Sex / Gender-based discrimination
Disability based discrimination
Racial discrimination
Discrimination based on Beliefs or Religion

It is illegitimate for any landlord to discriminate against his tenants due to any of the above reasons. As a result, the following aspects of discrimination are entirely against the law.

If a landlord Rents out a property to specific tenants by providing them worse terms and conditions than the other tenants.
If a landlord treats some of his tenants differently when determining various policies about access to certain facilities like garden access and laundry,
They are harassing or Evicting tenants because of gender, disability, race, sexuality or even religion, among others.
If a landlord refuses to entertain reasonable requests from disabled persons, for instance, if he doesn’t allow a dog to reside with a blind tenant on his property, etc.

If the landlord lives on the same property as the tenant, some of the above rules may not apply; however, the landowners are still prohibited from discriminating against any of their tenants because of their race.

Sex / Gender-based discrimination

The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (SDA) was introduced not only for sex discrimination against women, but this law also applies to various acts of sex discrimination against men. This Act states two types of sex discrimination. The first one is direct, and the second one is indirect.

Direct:

A typical example of this type of sex discrimination is a landowner who treats a female tenant as an inferior tenant as compared to the male tenants due to her sex.

Indirect:

A typical example of this type of sex discrimination is a landowner who applies a specific requirement or condition for a female tenant—a female tenant must comply with this condition or requirement to obtain a tenancy.

Victimisation

If a landowner victimises his tenants due to their sex by treating them differently and less favourably than his other tenants, it would be considered an act of sex discrimination and is entirely against the law.

Disability Discrimination Act

This Act makes it illegitimate for any landlord to discriminate against his tenants due to any disability. A ‘disabled person’ in this Act is defined as follows:

“A person has a disability if he or she has a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his/her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.”

According to this Act, a landlord can be discriminating if:

He treats a tenant differently due to some reasons based on his disability.
If the landlord cannot justify the mentioned treatment
The landowners fail to fulfil Part 2, Sec 6, as mentioned in the Disability Discrimination Act. This section describes the various adjustments to such agreements to make them suitable for a disabled tenant.
The landowner cannot justify failing to fulfil the requirement in Sec 6.

Various reasons are acceptable and can be used to treat a disabled tenant differently.

Below are the various circumstances whereby it’s acceptable to treat a disabled tenant with a difference.

Sometimes, disabled persons can be treated differently based on their safety and health.
- It is quite acceptable to refuse access to a facility to a disabled person when it is known that allowing access to a particular facility may pose a danger to others’ safety.
- If a disabled person cannot sign an enforceable agreement legally or has not given any legal consent, it can be acceptable to treat him differently.

Making Adjustments to Properties

Landlords are not required to make any special modifications to their properties to make their property easily accessible to disabled persons.

Racial Discrimination Act

According to the Race Relations Act, it is illegitimate for a landowner to discriminate against his tenant based on racial grounds. This Act describes various racial grounds such as colour, race, ethnic group, nationality, national origins, etc.

Under this Act, there are four main types of discrimination related to various racial backgrounds: direct, indirect, victimisation, and harassment.

Direct

Direct:

A typical example of this type of racial discrimination is a landowner who treats a particular tenant as an inferior tenant as compared to the other tenants due to their racial background.

Indirect:

In this type of racial discrimination, a landowner applies an additional requirement or condition to a tenant because of his racial background. A tenant must comply with this condition and the requirement to obtain tenancy. This is an example of indirect racial discrimination.

Victimisation

If a landowner victimises his tenants due to their race by treating them differently and less favourably than his other tenants, it would be considered an act of racial discrimination and is entirely illegitimate.

Harassment

According to the Race Relations Act 1976 (Amendment) Regulations 2003, any racial harassment on the grounds of ethnic, race or national origins is considered illegal, excluding racism based on nationality or colour. Harassment based on ethnicity or colour may be regarded as unlawful direct discrimination.

A landowner harasses his tenants based on race, national, or ethnic origins, or if the landowner indulges in some form of unwanted conduct that can affect the dignity of tenants or create a degrading, hostile, offensive, humiliating environment for them.

How to Tackle Discrimination

If you feel that your landlord may have discriminated against you, you have all the right to take legal action against them. The first step is to get reliable advice from a qualified and reputable attorney, the Citizens Advice Bureau, or a legal advice centre.

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