Migrant tenant shocked her landlord 'only allows white people' to rent her properties
Brianna Mcilraith14:36, Oct 15 2021
An Auckland landlord allows only European tenants in her properties.
An Auckland woman is horrified her landlord told her the only reason she was allowed to rent a home in the suburb of Remuera was because the landlord initially thought she was European.
“She [the landlord] said 'I only rent my house to European people or white Kiwis, and when you applied I ... thought you were a European person',” Sabrina said.
Sabrina, who didn’t want her last name used fearing it would make it harder to find a rental or lead to her being evicted, did not think hers was an isolated experience. “There will be many people who are affected by this.”
The situation arose when she started searching for a new flat, after wanting to downsize from the Remueraflat she had called home for four years.
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She had been struggling for months to find a place.
A few weeks ago her landlord came to the property when Sabrina mentioned the difficulty she was having. .
For many renters the prospect of rents decreasing is a more remote one than the chance they might own a home, yet there is one major city area where this is happening.
“She bluntly said ‘it's going to be hard for you to find a place here. I only gave you a contract because I thought you were European’,” she said.
Sabrina, who comes from Bangladesh, said she was taken aback, but she gave her landlord the benefit of the doubt.
It was during a subsequent meeting that Sabrina asked about the nationality issues again, when the landlord told her that when she had first considered Sabrina’s tenancy application, she thought she was European after viewing her driver's licence.
Sabrina said that at the time she had a French flatmate, which was why the landlord assumed they were both European.
Asked why she had been allowed to live in the home, and had her contract renewed every year, the landlord replied ”I realised you're different”, Sabrina said.
“That was quite a bit of a shock for me.”
As Sabrina was going out on Saturday, so the landlord could hold a viewing, she was told she’d already chosen a European couple to take over the tenancy.
“I only selected two groups of Europeans to come view the property today. I don't want any immigrants or people from other countries to view the house”, the landlord told Sabrina.
“I didn't want to know anything about this and just left,” she said.
“It was really shocking.”
Sabrina said it was disheartening, after living in New Zealand for 10 years and as a permanent resident to feel like she didn’t belong.
“A specific group of people can rent and live here. And when you walk around the neighbourhood where I live, that is the case, you don’t see much diversity around here.”
But Sabrina said she didn't want to leave the area, because it was convenient to where she works.
“I can, of course, go somewhere like Papatoetoe or Mt Roskill, where there are people who look like me everywhere, and it will be easy to rent a house.
“But just because I look a certain way doesn't mean I have to live in that area. As a citizen of this country I should have a choice of where I want to live without being racially profiled.”
She believed there would be many others in the same situation but said confronting the landlords, or complaining to tenancy services wasn't worth it.
“Sometimes in my situation, being a person of colour, it's quite hard to confront and hard to voice. I just feel like I don't belong here.”
Sabrina said she had found the property when it was listed by the landlord via real estate agency Barfoot & Thompson, and she believed the landlord had other properties in Auckland.
Caroline Dobby, interim head of brand at Barfoot & Thompson, said the agency had strict processes in place to avoid racial profiling happening.
“We have a strict training process in place that covers any kind of discrimination, and we would take any complaint of this nature very seriously,” Dobby said.
Chris Skelton/Stuff Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon said people can complain to the Human Rights Commission or Tenancy Services in regard to discrimination by landlords.
Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon said both the Human Rights Act and the Residential Tenancies Act prohibited discrimination against people.
A landlord was breaching the acts if they turned away a tenant on the basis of their gender, ethnicity, religion, political opinion, age, disability, marital and family status or sexual orientation.
Although Foon would not comment on Sabrina’s experience, he encouraged people to take a stand against discrimination by landlords.
“Anyone who believes they have been discriminated against in a tenancy situation can of course complain to the Human Rights Commission or to Tenancy Services,” he said.
Simon O'Connor/Stuff
Migrant Connections Taranaki coordinator Geetha Kutty says migrants face discrimination in the rental market, but often stay silent. (File photo)
Geetha Kutty of Migrant Connections Taranaki said immigrants and migrants often faced discrimination in the rental market.
An example Kutty gave was some landlords admitting they did not want to rent out homes to Indian families, because they claimed the smell of curry lingered in the property.
“The discrimination is there, but they [the affected tenants] don’t talk to a lawyer or take it anywhere, they just move on.”