Turkish home owners start to ask for credit rating, payroll slip for leasing

Duvar English

Istanbul house owners have started to ask for new information from people wanting to rent apartment flats. Some notices put up on the windows of the flats or on the internet listed conditions such as a trustworthy credit score or payroll slip. 

The demand for such information drew a reaction, with Consumers Confederation head Aydın Ağaoğlu saying: “This is against the law. No one can question others’ salaries or criminal records. They (applicants) don’t have to provide this information.”

In the housing advertisements, some of the house owners were seen wanting to receive the rent of six months in advance or wanting to be given very high deposits. For example, an advertisement posted for an apartment flat in the Başakşehir district required applicants to provide their credit rating, whereas a house owner in the Beşiktaş district demanded rent in advance for four months, two security deposits and vouchers worth 30,000 liras in case of a failure to pay the following rents, according to reporting by Demirören news agency.

Ağaoğlu called on people to file a complaint with regards to such demands at the Human Rights and Equality Institution of Turkey (TİHEK), deeming these conditions “unlawful.” “This has gone beyond the limit. They (house owners) will almost ask for criminal records,” he said.

Ağaoğlu said that house owners have started to pick tenants according to their professions and that this was illegal. “Recently, when a young lawyer wanted to rent a house, the house owner said, ‘I will not lease it to a lawyer. They would cause a great difficulty later on (in terms of seeking their rights,’” he said.