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Claim: A property owner can rent his property to whomever he wants.

Verdict: A property owner cannot exclude certain people from renting their property based on their race or ethnicity. However, they have a little more flexibility when excluding children and pets.

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An advertisement for a rental apartment in Żebbuġ with the warning that several ethnic minorities need not apply caused outrage earlier this week.

“No Pakistanis, Indians, Arabs and Filipinos,” the notice said, so that no one would think the property was available to everyone.

When the news broke, Alliance Real Estate, the agency that had advertised the property, quietly deleted the ad, admitting that the ad had inadvertently omitted a routine request from the property’s owner.

“Some owners decide to restrict certain cultures, nationalities or age groups of tenants, others may decide to ban all pets or certain types of pets,” the agency said, adding that it registers these requests through an internal comments section in its database.

Some were outraged at the discriminatory nature of this practice, while others argued that a property owner has every right to select his potential tenants.

Others wrote to Times of Maltaand asks whether tenants are actually legally prohibited from setting the terms and conditions of their rental properties in such a way that certain people are excluded.

Can’t I just rent my property to whoever I want?

It’s not that simple – and for good reason.

There are numerous stories throughout modern history of people being denied access to housing because of their religion, skin color, nationality or sexual orientation.

You don’t have to look far from home for examples of this.

In the early 20^th In the 19th century, it was Maltese migrants in Australia who were marginalized because they “had no idea about all the hygiene precautions”.

A century later, the tide has turned: in Malta, it is often migrants who bear the brunt of discriminatory housing practices.

This week’s incident is anything but new.

In 2011, another real estate agency, Simon Estates, advertised a rental property in Qawra and added the phrase “no Arabs, blacks or young boys (sic)” at the end of the advert. Although the agency was reprimanded for this, it ultimately got off scot-free.

A study commissioned by Malta’s Equality Commission just a few months later found that several property owners “have no interest in renting their properties to categories commonly referred to as ‘Arabs’, ‘blacks’ or certain nationalities such as ‘Libyans’ and ‘Chinese'”.

The Equal Opportunities Commission said Times of Malta The intention is to “repeat this study so that it provides an up-to-date picture of the situation.”

In any case, it is clear that the problem has persisted throughout the last decade.

In 2022, a Bangladeshi businessman described how he considered leaving Malta, where he had lived for nearly two decades, after being repeatedly turned away by property owners because he was “a Muslim man and a third-country national.”

What does the law say?

Not surprisingly, this type of discrimination has been put to an end by law, at least on paper.

A 2007 law known as the Equal Treatment of Persons Order prohibits direct or indirect discrimination against people on the basis of their race or ethnic origin. This makes it effectively illegal to deny a person a service (including housing, the law says) on the basis of their ethnicity.

The same law also makes it illegal to advertise a service in a way that “promotes discrimination or is discriminatory.”

Furthermore, if there is sufficient prima facie evidence that a potential tenant has been discriminated against, the burden of proof is on the property owner, who ultimately has to convince the courts that he has not acted unfairly.

The penalty for violating this law? A fine of up to 1,000 Maltese liri (about 2,330 euros) and a six-month prison sentence. It is unclear whether either of these penalties was ever imposed.

However, violating this law does not result in a criminal record because it is a civil and not a criminal offense.

While this law, based on the EU’s Racial Equality Directive, specifically addresses race and ethnicity, other changes to Malta’s laws – and its constitution – over the years have allowed discrimination on other grounds, including gender, sexual orientation and religion, among others.

A groundbreaking Equality Bill that would have combined these protections into a single cap was introduced in Parliament several years ago but appeared to have stalled after objections from church schools and some medical associations.

Following “discriminatory demands” is also illegal

But even without the updated Equality Act, it is still illegal to advertise a property with the aim of excluding people of a particular race or ethnicity.

In its response to the message, the Equality Commission said the agency’s explanation that the comment was intended for internal use was “a blatant admission that discriminatory and illegal criteria are used and normalised in its services”.

“Furthermore, the claim that they are obliged to comply with the discriminatory demands of their clients is both illegal and ethically wrong,” the commission said.

But lawyers say that while Maltese law clearly prohibits discrimination, practice is less clear and people find ways to choose their tenants without breaking the law.

“In reality, these anti-discrimination laws only come into play in obvious cases,” said a lawyer Times of Malta.

Is it also illegal to prohibit children or pets from entering my property?

No, real estate lawyers say the law does not explicitly mention this, so landlords have virtually free rein as to whether they want to rent their property to families with children or pets.

In practice, many landlords choose to prohibit pets in their rental properties, which puts pet owners in a difficult position when moving from one rental property to another.

This prompted animal welfare campaigner Alison Bezzina to call for the introduction of tax incentives for landlords who rent pet-friendly properties.

Verdict

The anti-discrimination laws of Malta and other EU member states make it illegal for property owners to exclude people from certain groups (including ethnic or racial groups) from renting their properties.

If a person feels unfairly discriminated against, it is the responsibility of the property owner to provide evidence that he or she has not acted in a discriminatory manner.

However, property owners can decide for themselves whether they allow people with children or pets to rent their property.

The Times of Malta fact-checking service is part of the Mediterranean Digital Media Observatory (MedDMO) ​​and the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), an independent observatory with offices in all 27 EU member states and funded by the EU Digital Europe programme. Fact-checking is based on our Code of Principles.

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