Information bank

Housing discrimination and the Equality Act 2007

The provision of housing is now covered by the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007.

Stonewall fought hard for these new regulations, which protect lesbian and gay people from discrimination when accessing goods and services. This could affect housing provision in two ways.

Local Authority Housing
The new regulations make it unlawful for public authorities to discriminate when providing public services. This covers the work of local authorities, including their provision of housing services.
This could include:

Equal access to housing services for lesbian, gay and bisexual people
Not taking action to help a lesbian or gay tenant who is experiencing homophobic abuse or harassment from other tenants.
Staff should treat lesbian, gay or bisexual users as courteously and professionally as they do other users, whatever their own personal views.
Planners of services will need to take steps to ensure that lesbian, gay or bisexual people have fair access to the services which they need.

Renting and selling property
The new regulations prohibit discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation when "disposing of premises", for example when selling or renting property. This could cover:

Refusing to sell or rent the premises to someone because they are gay
Offering a different price or terms to someone because of their sexual orientation
Discriminating against people on a list of those requiring housing: for example by giving priority to people of a certain sexual orientation, or deliberately overlooking those of a certain sexual orientation.

The regulations also make it unlawful for the manager of a property, such as a landlord, to discriminate against a tenant or someone associated with them on the grounds of their sexual orientation. This could cover all aspects of a landlord's responsibilities, such as upkeep of the facilities or eviction.

What to do if you have experienced discrimination:
If you think that you have been discriminated against by a housing provider and that it is due to your sexual orientation, then this could possibly be unlawful under these new regulations, depending on the individual circumstances.
What you could do:

Try to resolve the matter with the organisation or your local authority directly. Contact them in person or write a formal letter of complaint.
Talk to your local Citizen's Advice Bureau about your individual housing situation and find out what you can do.
Get some legal advice- see our legal advice pages for gay-run and gay-friendly solicitors firms.

If you cannot find the information you need on this website, you can call our info line on 08000 50 20 20 (Mon-Fri 9.30am- 5.30pm) and we will try to point you in the right direction.