Choosing your tenant without discriminating

This is the weightiest decision in a landlord's journey, and legally the most exposed. Housing discrimination is prohibited in Belgium by a body of texts: the federal Act of 10 May 2007 combating certain forms of discrimination, the Act of 30 July 1981 (so-called "racial" grounds), the Gender Act of 10 May 2007, supplemented by regional provisions — in the Brussels Housing Code, and in the Walloon and Flemish texts. They apply to the private rental market as much as to social housing. You cannot contract out of them, not even in your own building.

What the law does not forbid is choosing. You are perfectly entitled to select the candidate with the strongest file. The whole question is what you base that judgement on.

1. Protected grounds: what you may not decide on

The list is long, and you need to know it. A refusal may not rest on, among others:

• origin (so-called race, skin colour, descent, national or ethnic origin) and nationality;
• sex, pregnancy, maternity, gender identity and expression;
• age;
• current or future health status, disability, a physical or genetic characteristic;
• civil status and family situation (having children, being a single parent, cohabiting unmarried);
• sexual orientation;
• religious, philosophical or political convictions;
• language;
• social origin and wealth.

That last ground is the most misunderstood, and the most often breached.

2. Refusing someone on benefits is unlawful

Let us repeat it, because it is the point that produces the most rulings against landlords: refusing a candidate because their income comes from a benefit — social integration income from the CPAS/OCMW, unemployment benefit, income-replacement allowance, disability allowance, pension — is discrimination on grounds of wealth or social origin. It is illegal, however sound the economic reasoning may seem to you.

Wording such as "Employment contract only" or "No benefit recipients" in an ad, in a message, or even over the phone, is written or attestable evidence against you.

What matters is not the source of the income but its amount and its regularity. An invalidity allowance paid for eight years is, in practice, a steadier income than a temp contract. The law asks you to assess the ability to pay, not to sort people by how they earn their living.

3. What you may legitimately assess

Three things, and they are enough:

Solvency

You may ask for the amount of the candidate's financial resources and supporting evidence. The usual market benchmark — that rent including charges should not exceed about one third of the household's net income — is a practice, not a rule of law. It has no binding force, and it must be used as an indicator, not as an automatic filter.

Why that nuance is essential: applied mechanically, a rigid ratio produces what the law calls indirect discrimination. An apparently neutral criterion that systematically disadvantages a protected group (single-parent families, disabled people, benefit recipients) is unlawful unless it is objectively justified and proportionate. A household on 2,400 € that has paid 850 € for six years without incident is, in reality, a better risk than an executive on 3,500 € still in their probation period.

Stability

Seniority in the job or in the income source, regularity of payments, length of previous tenancies. Again: stability is observed, not inferred from a status.

References

You may ask for references from previous landlords or a certificate of good end of tenancy. Contact them — with the candidate's consent. A three-minute conversation with the previous landlord teaches you more than ten documents.

4. What you may NOT ask for

All three Regions restrict the list of information a landlord may request at the application stage. The lists are not word-for-word identical, but the spirit is the same: strictly what is needed to identify the candidate and assess their ability to pay. Check the exact list applicable in your Region — Brussels in particular wrote it into the Housing Code.

Beyond that list, you do not ask for:

• a criminal record extract;
• medical information, a health certificate, the existence of a disability;
• information about pregnancy or plans to have children;
• origin, nationality beyond what identification requires, a photograph;
• religious, political or trade-union affiliation;
• a CPAS/OCMW certificate used to spot benefit recipients;
• a breakdown of spending or complete bank statements;
• the reason for a move or for a separation.

And remember the GDPR: keep only what is necessary, for as long as it is necessary. The files of unsuccessful candidates are deleted once the property is allocated. Do not keep photocopies of ID cards "just in case".

5. Documenting a refusal: your best protection

You are not legally required to give reasons for your refusal. But — and this is decisive — in discrimination matters the burden of proof is shared: if the candidate produces facts giving rise to a presumption of discrimination (figures, a witness, a situation test, a clumsy message), it is for you to prove that your decision rested on a lawful ground. In practice that flips the burden: whoever documented nothing is the one who loses.

Hence the method:

The sanctions are not theoretical: the 2007 Act provides for lump-sum compensation (outside employment relations the order of magnitude in the text is a few hundred euros, increased in certain cases), an injunction action before the president of the court, and, depending on the Region, administrative fines. Some Regions also run situation tests (test applications or mystery calls). As the amounts and procedures have been amended several times, check the current state of the law with Unia or the Institute for the Equality of Women and Men.

6. How Domilinko handles it

The product is built exactly along that line — and it does not cross it.

• The tenant builds a reusable file: income, guarantor, household composition, supporting documents. They fill it in once and send it as often as needed.
• When they apply, the file is frozen into a dated snapshot. A later update to their profile does not rewrite an application already sent. You assess every candidate on comparable evidence, as at the same date: exactly what you will need if your decision is ever challenged.
• The income-to-rent ratio sorting flags files falling below the criteria you set. It does not remove them, hide them, or reject them automatically. You see every candidate. You decide.

That is not a technical limitation but a design choice. An automatic filter based on a ratio would produce indirect discrimination at scale, and it would let you believe an algorithm decided for you. It did not. The landlord remains sovereign — and therefore responsible.

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This article describes a general framework and is not legal advice. If in doubt about a specific situation, contact Unia (unia.be), the Institute for the Equality of Women and Men, or a lawyer. The lists of information that may be requested, the sanctions and the procedures differ between Brussels, Wallonia and Flanders and change regularly.