PROSPECTIVE TENANT: avoiding discrimination

When a prospective tenant visits the property, you may ask them to complete an information form to gather the details required to make your decision. Always remain neutral and objective; certain discriminatory criteria may not be taken into account.

› PROTECTED CRITERIA

Protected criteria are criteria that cannot be used as grounds for rejecting applicants: age, sexual orientation, language, marital status, birth, wealth, religious or philosophical beliefs, political beliefs, current or future state of health, disability, physical or genetic characteristics, social origin and nationality, purported race, skin colour, ancestry, national or ethnic origin and sex. However, some of these criteria may be objectively justified; only those in bold are indisputable.

› FINANCIAL RESOURCES

You are required to take all of the applicant’s financial resources into account, which means that you cannot rely solely on payslips. If the applicant receives unemployment benefit, disability benefit from a health insurance fund or CPAS assistance, this income must be accepted. It is therefore prohibited to require a permanent employment contract or to reject CPAS benefit recipients. You may reject an applicant because their financial resources are insufficient to cover the rent, but you may not discriminate against them on the basis of the source of their income.

› A FIXED RENT

The rent must be stated in all advertisements, and this amount must be fixed. You cannot advertise a price of 800 euros per month to one person and 1,000 euros to another on the grounds that the latter earns more.

› LIMITING THE NUMBER OF OCCUPANTS

There are criteria relating to overcrowding that limit the number of people permitted in each property based on certain factors. For example, you may reject a family with children if it exceeds this number. The number of permitted occupants must be specified in the tenancy agreement. You may also refuse pets where this is justified, although this will be more difficult in the case of an assistance dog (for a visually impaired person, for example).

You can download an information form approved by the IPI here: PROSPECTIVE TENANT INFORMATION FORM