No lease to Indians

[neha]

Hi

Just was informed by an agent that some landlord has given instructions that they will not lease apartments to Indians. Is it illegal? or the discrimination law doesnot cover that ?

Thanks/

[PDLM]

There is no racial discrimination law yet in place in Hong Kong. But landlords are never under any obligation to rent to anybody. They don't have to have a reason.

[Claire ex-ax]

HK landlords are a funny lot. Some won't even rent to locals. One friend was declined by landlady who decided all single Western women in HK were prostitutes.

[Boris]

My landlord ( who is a lovely guy but very " village " ) would not let one of his units to a friend of ours who's husband is a pastor. He thought, and we couldn't convince him otherwise, that there would be continual hymn signing and baptisms going on. The guy actually works with Gamblers Addiction clinics!

Funny old world !

[vmlinuz]

My landlady told me she is happier to rent to expats, partly because we treat the place better than locals would - but mostly because she thinks it's unlikely that we would move a load of our relatives in a week after taking the lease...

[pin]

does that mean they will rent out to Pakistanis and Bangladeshi's though?

[jayinhongkong]

does that mean they will rent out to Pakistanis and Bangladeshi's though?

lol possibly, but unlikely. we're all cha cha to them

[Mat]

I see why it might be annoying but you can't do much about it. The landlord rents to who ever he prefers...

I know some locals who do not want to rent to Japanese / Korean, the excuse being that the suicide rate of those ppl is apparently higher (not even sure about that but..) and that if they do commit suicide in the flat it will be harder to rent later on....

I know of some Gweilo who do not want to rent to Gweilo (considering them too picky and troublesome)

You get a lot of people with different mindset...that's life...and you really can't do anything about it.

[dropdedfwed]

in some "humanitarian" countries it isn't "just life", and there are laws against it. then again, one just has to find some other reason to not accept the applicant without making the real reason obvious.

It's funny, I know some landlords in Sydney that won't rent to foreigners from Asia for a multitude of reasons, yet they never say that when they knock back the application. There's always another applicant and yo can sya you found a more suitable one...

[jgl]

In a way, it's almost refreshingly honest here. There's no hiding motives behind politically-correct BS.

I once had an agent ask me over the phone if I was Chinese or a Westerner as the landlord wanted to know. After giving her an earful, I thought about it some more, and I appreciated that she was so upfront about it (and decided that it was a useful thing to know about the landlord.)