The audios that present racism within the rental of residences: “The owner does not want anyone from outside” | News from Catalonia | EUROtoday

Renting an condo can turn into a darkish journey, with restricted provide in giant cities and exorbitant costs. The downside, generally, is not only cash: it may also be the final identify. Hamid Hmata, Yahya Aaboud and Redouane Mehdi have skilled it firsthand, three males of Moroccan origin settled in Spain with secure jobs and good salaries. Their solvency has not been sufficient for them to be thought of good tenants. They have confronted episodes of discrimination resulting from their origin. And they’ve rebelled. The three, every on their very own, have gathered proof that proves what scientific literature has confirmed for years: actual property racism as a technique, with businesses that break the legislation by accepting the homeowners’ calls for to not hire their houses to foreigners.

Hamid Hmata, 50 years outdated and born in Tangier, has been renting along with his household since 2013 in a cushty condo in a rich space of ​​Mataró, 30 kilometers northeast of Barcelona. He works in worldwide commerce for a multinational firm. He is married and has three kids. After the coronavirus disaster, he appeared for a bigger residence, additionally a rental, for his household. He contacted 13 actual property businesses in Mataró. “I saw that they almost never called me, they told me that the apartment couldn’t be seen or that it was approved… It was strange.” Then he turned enlightened; He noticed on tv the story of Redouane Mehdi, a Moroccan like him: Barcelona City Council had fined the homeowners of an condo and the true property company that rented it 45,000 euros for discrimination. “I talked to my wife and told her: I think that’s what’s happening to me.”

This is how Hamid has turn into, over time, the scourge of actual property corporations that observe racist practices. He offered 12 complaints that the City Council rejected as a result of that they had expired. “I got tired and let it be for a while, because it had also created emotional stress for me,” he says. But in 2024, when he resumed his seek for housing and bumped into the identical obstacles, he acted once more. He offered three different complaints which have had an extended historical past and are within the arms of the Office of Equal Treatment and Non-Discrimination of the Generalitat, which this week imposed the primary sanction since its creation six years in the past: 10,000 euros to the company that refused to point out Hamid an condo resulting from his origin. Most instances of discrimination in the true property sector should not immediately reported, or fall on deaf ears resulting from lack of proof. But Hamid does have them: he saved the messages and recorded the conversations he had with the salespeople. “Why can’t you show it to me? Because the owner doesn’t want Moroccans, tell the truth,” he asks throughout a go to. “That’s also true, but it has nothing to do with that. It’s reserved,” the true property agent solutions. The audios, which EL PAÍS has accessed, are integrated into the file that led to a sanction.

“Testing” inmobiliario

Hamid’s investigations are based mostly on the testing actual property, a apply that researchers use for his or her research. Two folks, one native and the opposite international, are keen on the identical condo. It’s about observing what occurs with every of them. Hamid has acquired the assistance of two coworkers, Jordi and Xavier, two folks “committed against racism.” The parallel sequence of emails is sort of as eloquent because the audio. After turning into keen on an condo price virtually 2,000 euros monthly in Vía Europa via Habitaclia, the company gave each contrasting solutions just some minutes aside. “I called you to inform you that the apartment is already rented,” they instructed Hamid. “It could be today [la visita] at 7:35 p.m.,” they answered Jordi. They did not know that Hamid was going to point out up unexpectedly for the go to and report it.

He testing “It may seem like a trick, but it is valid because it reveals a greater evil, a violation of rights,” explains Miguel Ruiz, lawyer on the Desca Observatory and knowledgeable in actual property racism. It signifies, as a authorized instance, that the United States Supreme Court validated this apply within the 60s of the final century as a authorized software to fight racial discrimination. The “underreporting” of one of these scenario, provides Ruiz, is similar to what occurred up to now with “gender violence or sexual and workplace harassment.” “It is a debate that is beginning to be in the streets, but has not yet permeated the courts or public administrations,” he laments concerning the shortage of sanctions and the difficulties that complainants face in getting their case ahead, even with strong proof.

This is alleged by Yahya Aboud, a 32-year-old man who works as a monetary knowledgeable in a Basque firm and lives in Irún (Guipúzcoa). In 2022, he needed to turn into unbiased and began searching for a rental condo. “I thought it was going to be easy, but no. They put me on a waiting list. Or they told me that they already had someone else… I saw that they treated me differently and that priority was always given to the Spanish, unless it was a bad apartment, which then it was,” he explains. He additionally discovered, via the media, about Redouane’s case. Something stirred inside him. And he determined to check the system. He known as keen on visiting an condo for 950 euros, however was knowledgeable in writing that the proprietor “prefers to wait for the response to the dossier.” [de solvencia económica]. The identical day, a buddy of hers with an unmistakably Spanish surname (Rodríguez) known as and was in a position to go to the home that afternoon.

To the shock of the industrial, Yahya and Rodríguez confirmed up collectively for the go to and recorded the dialog in quest of proof. They discovered them. “I have seen that your conditions are great. But [el propietario] he doesn’t want anyone from outside (…) On the phone I can’t tell you that because your last name is Abdul or whatever…”, the agent tells him. With that file, the person filed a grievance with the Housing Department of the Basque Government, which refused to provoke a sanctioning file as a result of it didn’t see on the a part of the company “actions or omissions that amount to real estate harassment or discrimination.” He had began a judicial journey that ended badly, as a result of the Basque TSJ rejected his declare. “It really screwed me up that, having everything, the captures, recording, it ended like this. The real estate company must follow the laws and tell the owner, even if it is their client, that they cannot agree to exclude foreigners. Housing is difficult for everyone, but for people of foreign origin there is one more layer.”

Say “no” to the owner

“Agencies, that are intermediaries, are topic to the legislation like everybody else. They have a really clear duty to unceremoniously reject their purchasers’ proposals which can be discriminatory,” recalls Aliou Diallo, institutional racism researcher at the Department of Public Law at the University of Girona. Diallo asks that the administration be more proactive and create, for example, a body of inspectors, because real estate racism is not an exception or an anomaly, but rather “the usual way the market works,” which hits even harder people without as many resources (human, material, etc.) as Hamid or Yahya. “Many individuals who undergo from it do not even know that they will report it. And proving it’s much more tough for them.”

The studies that have emerged in line with the demand confirm that it is a structural problem. InIs it rented? Racism and segregation in housing rental (from the Provivienda entity, March 2025), the researchers made 100 calls to agencies in Barcelona and Madrid posing as owners who wanted to rent their apartment except to foreigners. Well, 99 of them “accepted explicit discriminatory practices” compared to 72 in a similar study, carried out by the same authors, five years ago. Some responses are transcribed. “You want a national profile, well national.” In another 600 calls from supposed tenants (half with a Spanish accent, half with a foreign accent), the study confirms differences in treatment: the foreigner is offered worse apartments, fewer alternatives, the visit is made less easy for him or he is given fewer details of the advertisement.

The price of prejudice (IDRA, 2024) found greater access difficulties for the migrant population, who are mostly tenants (70%). and in The key can be a name (Barcelona City Council, 2020), it was evident that the agencies responded less to requests interested in rental apartments from people with Arabic names than with native names.

There are flagrant cases, such as an advertisement published in Idealista that requested “Spanish students with an indefinite contract.” In October 2022, Barcelona City Council imposed a fine of 90,000 euros on the owner, the agency and the portal. A contentious court in Barcelona finally annulled the sanction against Idealista (for being a mere intermediary), but upheld the others. The advertisement intended to “exclude tenants of different nationalities” and, therefore, is “discriminatory” and fails to comply with all regulations, the ruling states. But in general, the situations are more subtle.

Redouane Mehdi is the pc engineer who, for the primary time, achieved a sanction for actual property racism. He needed to stay alone in an condo in Barcelona, ​​however they refused to hire it to him due to his final identify. In August 2021, Barcelona City Council imposed a penalty for this discrimination, the primary acknowledged in Spain. But the tip of the story has but to be written. Redouane, who’s now 36 years outdated, says {that a} court docket annulled the sanction as a result of the City Council didn’t present the proof (audio recordings) that it had offered within the grievance. He doesn’t hand over and has resorted to legal proceedings, though for now the case will not be profitable. Be that as it could, he feels proud to have paved the best way and impressed others to talk out. “It is important that people act, that they know that, in addition to obligations, they also have rights.”