Human Rights and Equality Institution of Türkiye was established to protect persons’ right to equal treatment on the basis of human dignity, prevention of discrimination in exercising the legally acknowledged rights and freedoms and work under these principles, to effectively combat torture and ill-treatment and fulfill the national preventive mechanism mandate in this area. In line with this, there are many applications done to our Institution with the allegation of violation of the prohibition of discrimination. Applications regarding the allegations of being discriminated during the process of leasing a house take an important place among the aforementioned applications.
Although the most commonly encountered type of discrimination during the housing lease process is discrimination on the basis of marital status, it can be seen that different treatments encountered during this process can have various reasons. As a matter of fact, there is an increase in advertisements in foreign languages or advertisements titled "(Will be) Leased only to Foreigners" on real estate websites recently and these are also quite frequently mentioned during the provincial human rights consultation meetings held by our Institution. As Human Rights and Equality Institution of Türkiye, we would like to state that if necessary measures are not taken against the aforementioned advertisements and practices emphasizing being of foreign origins, there is a risk of discrimination becoming widespread in our citizens' access to housing.
The increase in housing demand and the foreigners' ability to pay in foreign currency caused an increase in house and rent prices. Under these conditions, it becomes a common practice for landlords and real estate agents to lease and sell their houses to foreigners at high prices in foreign currency while not responding to our citizens' housing needs without any reasonable ground.
On the other hand, the housing supply made in favor of foreigners even in cases where our citizens are able to pay high foreign currency based rent prices, shows the belief of landlords and real estate agents based on the assumption that our citizens will have difficulty in payment and these people's wealth and economic situation are insufficient when compared to foreign nationals. The concept of wealth means the current total value of the owner's assets accumulated until a certain time or the movable and immovable values that provide income to the owner. Subjecting a person to a different treatment that is not based on legitimate and reasonable grounds due to their wealth, which is a concept that includes their financial possibilities and assets, may cause a violation of the prohibition of discrimination (HREIT, Discrimination on the Basis of Wealth, Bases of Discrimination Series: No: 7, p. 3).
In the first paragraph of Article 4, titled "Types of Discrimination", of the Law No. 6701 on the Human Rights and Equality Institution of Türkiye, "discrimination based on an assumed ground" is counted as a type of discrimination. According to the first paragraph of the Article 2 of the aforementioned Law, discrimination based on an assumed ground is defined as: "Instances where a natural person or legal person who, although not really bearing one of the grounds of discrimination cited in this Law, is subject to a discriminatory treatment in terms of exercise of legally recognized rights and freedoms based on the assumption that s/he bears one of these grounds."
Article 3 of Law No. 6701 on Human Rights and Equality Institution of Türkiye stipulates: "It is prohibited under this Law to discriminate against persons based on the grounds of sex, race, colour, language, religion, belief, sect, philosophical or political opinion, ethnical origin, wealth, birth, marital status, health status, disability and age." As to the third paragraph of Article 5 of the aforementioned Law includes the following provision: "When offering movable and immovable property to public; public institutions and agencies, professional bodies with public institution status, natural persons and legal persons established under private law and those authorize by them shall never discriminate against those who wish to acquire or rent such property and wish to receive information thereon at any stage during the lease of such property, formulation of the conditions of the contract of lease, renewal of the contract of lease or termination thereof, sale or assignment."
Within this scope, according to Law no. 6701, the relevant parties should consider the fact that the right to housing and shelter is one of the most fundamental human rights in sale and lease processes of movable and immovable properties and that our citizens should not be subjected to any discriminatory treatment during these processes. Our Institution will keep on following these issues.
Respectfully announced to the public.