More than a third of estate agents agree to a request from a landlord to exclude people with a foreign-sounding name from a rental property. This has emerged from an investigation carried out on behalf of the outgoing minister Kajsa Ollongren (Home Affairs). It is the first national study into discrimination in the rental market.
The investigation was carried out by the anti-discrimination organizations Art.1 and Radar. They responded to housing advertisements three thousand times with Dutch, Polish and Moroccan names. This showed that prospective tenants with a Polish or Moroccan-sounding name were less often invited for viewings.
In addition, they carried out 105 mystery calls to real estate agents posing as a landlord who did not want to rent to immigrants. More than a third agreed or placed the responsibility for this on the landlord. Only fifteen brokers indicated that they did not want to cooperate.
‘Alarming results’
Ollongren calls the results “alarming”. “This research shows that discrimination in the housing market occurs across the country. It is not just a problem for the big cities. Discrimination is not allowed and will not be tolerated. That is why we will intensify our approach against it in the coming period,” she says. .
In concrete terms, it gives municipalities more powers to set permits for landlords and to better enforce discrimination. Rules for rental agents and real estate agents are also being looked at. The investigation with mystery calls will be carried out again later to keep an eye on the problem and to create more awareness.
‘Require brokers to join the trade association’
In response to the report, the trade association of real estate agents, appraisers and rental brokers VBO argues for a legal obligation for rental agents to join a trade association. “Then they fall under the rules of conduct of a trade association, they are held responsible for their actions and they fall under the disciplinary law of the Disciplinary Court of the Makelaardij Nederland”, the association says.
VBO also wants a more transparent and objective selection procedure in the free sector. “The selection of a potential tenant must be made on the basis of relevant and objective criteria such as work, income and family composition. Irrelevant matters such as an individual’s ethnic or cultural background must be disregarded.”
The organization proposes to set up a platform on which home seekers can submit their data and where a selection is made on the basis of predetermined criteria.
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