Rental property owners have changed their preferences when choosing a tenant. Families with children, years ago seen as the most stable profile when it comes to paying rent, are beginning to be perceived with a certain suspicion by some landlords, who are now opting for what they consider to be safer tenants. Distrust multiplies if the person knocking on the door is a single-parent family like Marina Duarte’s, who has been looking for a rental in Madrid for more than a year. Impossible. “They don’t want to rent to me,” says this 39-year-old Uruguayan woman with two minor children who lives in an apartment given away free of charge by an NGO in the Tetuán neighborhood. She says she speaks from “many families who are in the same situation.”
Duarte is employed and, even so, she does not have access to a rental apartment. “I have two jobs, one for six hours as a cleaner and another for four hours as a housekeeper, and with both I earn 1,200 euros a month. But they tell me that I don’t pass the solvency study because with my salary I have to support my two children.” From Provivienda they explain that profiles like that of this Uruguayan are being excluded from the rental market. “Most agencies and owners have a preference for families without children and, in the case of families with children, they prefer those with two parents; the single-parent “They are the ones that experience the greatest direct discrimination.” For this type of households, headed by women in 81% of cases, the increase in rental prices in recent years has generated a very significant economic burden. One in four single-parent families has difficulties making the payment, a percentage that drops to 8% when there are two parents, according to the Provivienda Affordable Housing Observatory.
Duarte continues looking for an apartment, both through real estate agencies and through individuals. Not even renting rooms is a solution because you would need two and “they are 900 euros, 450 each.” This is how he assesses the situation: “It is a structural problem. “I don’t know what’s going through the owners’ minds, they make it more difficult for us than for people without children.”
Carmen, 38 years old and with two children, feels the same desperation. She is currently a beneficiary of a Provivienda project financed by the Insular Institute of Social and Socio-Sanitary Care of Tenerife. “No one wants to rent to me, it’s a constant rejection. The refusal is total and absolute. Because? Because I have children. “I don’t understand the reason for this rejection, especially from owners who have children,” the young Canarian woman complains bitterly. She has been trying to find a rental since August. “The world is coming down on me and my head is hitting the ceiling because it is impossible. Despite presenting all the papers that are required of us, such as payroll and the endorsement of Provivienda, there is always a catch. In my case it is the small children, because the owners also believe that they make noises and are annoying.”
The historical series of the Tecnocasa real estate network reveals that in a decade the number of rentals to families (married couples and de facto couples) has been reduced from 37% in 2013 to 27% today. On the contrary, renting to single people has grown, going from 54.5% to 59%. “The owners prefer singles with a good income, digital nomads, civil servants… Their mentality has changed and what they value are the options that they consider to be lower risk. It’s not discrimination, it’s an income issue. They want to escape from non-payment problems and a couple with children or a single mother are at greater risk because their income must be higher,” says Lázaro Cubero, director of Analysis at Tecnocasa, who compares this process of landlords with the risk analysis that banks do or with the personnel selection process of any company.
On the list of mistrust of the owners is the fear of the declaration of vulnerability of a family with minor children and the subsequent difficulty in carrying out the eviction. “The recent housing law, although it has established more mechanisms to protect tenants against evictions, has also generated great unrest among some owners. The latter are afraid that the fact that there are minors in the home will make possible evictions difficult in the event of non-payment,” the KLJ Abogados law firm indicates. “The owner’s perception is that the law is very protectionist towards the tenant and that creates uncertainty, he believes he is more exposed and closes the door to certain profiles,” adds Ferran Font, Director of Studies at Pisos.com.
Without forgetting the prejudices regarding noise, inconvenience and damage that minors could cause in the apartment and the community. KLJ lawyers confirm that “when dealing with recently renovated properties, some owners, especially individuals, avoid renting them to families with children because they think there is a greater chance that they will return the house in poor condition.”
Owners of rental apartments look for security above all. “In the end, when a family starts to have no money, the first thing they stop paying is the rent. The owners want to be sure that the tenants do not cause problems and have good financial solvency. Now the most in-demand profile is that of a relatively young couple without children and also civil servants,” says David Caraballo, general director of Rental Insurance.
It is rare to find black on white, the requirement that profiles with children are not accepted, although there are some advertisements, especially in the case of room rentals. It is more common for both owners and real estate companies to indicate the limitation verbally. “Once they receive more information about the tenants (number of people who will live in the home, income and job stability, whether or not they have pets), they limit the selection, for example by indicating that the home has finally been reserved or by demanding additional guarantees to the deposit that they know the tenant will not be able to afford,” they point out in KLJ.
The casting effect
This rejection of certain tenant profiles is one of the harshest and most unfair consequences of an offer that does not even remotely cover excess demand. “There are fewer and fewer houses for rent, so the owner has a choice,” says Font. The landlord has absolute decision-making power, almost never seen before. He has established the well-known castings real estate, in which you have to meet endless requirements to be able to rent the apartment. “In the end, the owners own their homes and, therefore, they are the ones who usually have the final say on what type of tenant they want,” says Caraballo.
Regarding whether it is discrimination, it is very difficult to prove that the landlord vetoes families with children, since he can cite any reason for not accepting them. “We consider that, although it could violate article 14 of the Constitution, it is very difficult to prove this discrimination, and it is not a legal problem, but rather a social one,” conclude the KLJ lawyers.
The solution for households with children and insufficient financial solvency for landlords is to look for more affordable rentals, something that practically does not exist in large cities. It would be necessary to greatly expand the search area and move away. “This can have consequences on the families’ own lives. Moving from a neighborhood, sometimes, also means losing the informal support network of closeness, whether family or through the neighborhood,” they maintain in Provivienda.
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