Unjustified blanket bans on letting properties to households with kids will not be allowed beneath Property Ombudsman guidelines.
The ruling comes after a mother-of-four received a landmark case in opposition to an property agent who discriminated in opposition to her household.
Nurse Lexi Levens, 33, and her household had been handed a Section 21 no-fault eviction on Christmas Eve – and later discovered no landlords or letting brokers would lease to a household with 4 kids.
Ms Levens, working with the housing charity Shelter, introduced her case to the Property Ombudsman and succeeded.
As a outcome, the Property Ombudsman has concluded that blanket bans by landlords or letting brokers on renting to households are in breach of equality guidelines in its Code of Practice.
One in 5 households have been unable to lease someplace in England as a result of they’ve kids, new information from Shelter reveals.
In future, no letting brokers who’re members of the Property Ombudsman will have the ability to embrace blanket bans with out cheap proof or justification. If they do, they face having to pay compensation to anybody they’ve discriminated in opposition to.
Property brokers within the UK are required to enroll to a redress scheme, of which there are two: the Property Ombudsman and the Property Redress Scheme.
Families struggling to search out locations to reside
Thousands of personal renting households in England have been impacted by “no kids” discrimination – and figures present the bans disproportionately have an effect on ladies.
Data launched by Shelter reveals one in 5 (19%) mother and father – equating to nearly 300,000 households in England – have been unable to lease someplace they needed within the final 5 years as a result of they’ve kids.
The charity is now urging the federal government to go additional and arrange its long-promised Renters’ Reform Bill, which might assist make this sort of blanket discrimination instantly illegal.
‘Our kids had been being discriminated in opposition to’
When in search of a brand new non-public rental, Ms Levens stated she was shocked when no landlords or letting brokers would lease to a household with 4 kids.
Despite each Ms Levens and her husband passing affordability checks, they’d no alternative however to register with the council as homeless.
“The fact kids could be discriminated against is abhorrent and should never have been able to happen,” Ms Levens stated.
“I couldn’t believe this was happening to me, yet the more I talked about it, the more people came forward saying they’d experienced the same or knew someone who had.
“My scenario was nothing wanting distressing and humiliating. Our kids had been being discriminated in opposition to and nobody was listening or taking me significantly, so I went to Shelter, they usually supplied to assist me problem this with the Property Ombudsman.”
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She said she was “thrilled” by the outcome of the challenge and hoped it would put a stop to families being “handled unfairly”.
Rose Arnall, a solicitor at Shelter, said: “No one must be barred from discovering a secure and secure house just because they’ve kids. Whether you possibly can safe a house should not be primarily based on a landlord or letting agent’s baseless prejudices in regards to the ‘kind’ of tenant you could be…
“This is a great step forward in addressing the power imbalance which sees tenants hitting unfair barriers and being forced to jump through ridiculous hoops.”
Source: information.sky.com”