Please tell me this is unethical!!!

[bergentulip]

Now, before I start, I know that some people just don't like children, BUT.....

We have been searching for rental property for a few weeks now, and I have to say I am utterly, utterly appalled at the number of places listed that specify 'no children or pets'.

???!!! How is that allowed? So open, so discriminatory. Like I say, I know people don't like children, and the landlord always has the last say on who lives in their property, but to put something like that just casts a broad, sweeping assumption across families, suggesting that all children are little terrors who are going to tear a property apart.
Mine, for one, do not.

I also think it is cheeky to say 'no students', or 'young professionals' only, etc etc.... Either you want to rent your property or you don't.

I cannot believe they can get away with that quite frankly, and am sure there is some legal standing somewhere that would make this sort of discrimation illegal?

I know I am going a little over the top on this issue, perhaps, but it is really starting to piss me off.

[Tigger13]

Come and rent my house, we want a family with children!

[southutsire]

Over the past few years especially, a lot of ignorant people have gone into BTL as an investment, when what they really want is an investment that doesn't call you to tell you the boiler's broken, or want anything fixed, or want to put pictures up on the walls, or walk on the carpets, or basically live in the house. Any contact other than your money going into their bank account is a nuisance to them. Seems to be getting worse at the moment, as so many people are currently unable to sell their house that there's loads deciding to try to rent them out instead, with no thought as to the responsibility involved.

I think we've been very lucky and not had a problem with our son or even our 2 dogs in rented accommodation, but then our landlord's property company has been going for a long time, and he knows that good tenants are not defined by whether they have children or animals. I hear people have this problem a lot, though, and it says everything about how skewed the issue of housing is in the UK.

[bergentulip]

South, that is clearly exactly what it is. Obvious when you say it.

Regardless of people's ignorant motives behind specifying the type of tenant they want, I just don't think it can be ethical. I don't see how it is legal. I'm too damn lazy to actually do something about it, or challenge it (apart from perhaps bitch and moan to the estate agent!), but I sure wish someone would make a high profile big deal about it.

I know, if everyone said that, nothing would ever get changed.

Such a shame as we lived for three years in SW London before moving abroad, with children, and had a fab relationship with the landlord, who said we were the easiest tenants he'd ever had.
Oh well, these other unlucky landlords/ladies will never have the pleasure of having us in their home....

(weirdiest one was a three bed house with big garden in the middle of nowhere, and it said NO CHILDREN.... well, who the hell else will want to live there????)

[bergentulip]

hanaflower- don't even get me started on deposits!!!

Some estate agent somewhere has x number of properties, each with a deposit in the region of £1000. So, perhaps up to £100,000 sitting in some account somewhere, high interest, making loads of money. Meanwhile, you do not have this 'deposit' in your own account, so cannot make any interest on it yourself.

Then, at the end, if LUCKY, you get the £1000 back again- but none of the interest. Not even an increase in line with inflation. You, the technical owner of said money, lose money on it. Again, unethical. And, for example with our last place, you've been there for three years, that is three years you've lost out on interest on your own money, and they have profited off it....!!! Argh!

(No deposit taken here, or even any agent fee. They are happy with making money on the RENT!)