Building superintendent fined for denying flats to bachelors, students in central Turkey

A state watchdog dealt a blow to a bizarre mindset among landlords and superintendents, especially in small cities, who believe leasing apartments to bachelors and students will spoil the lives of the families in the apartment buildings.

A building superintendent was fined by the official Human Rights and Equality Institution of Turkey (TIHEK) for discrimination through a decision to deny flats to students and bachelors living apart from their families. Rejections are particularly common in deeply conservative parts of the country where living a bachelor's life leads to spiteful glances from society and single university students find it challenging to rent a flat.

A flat owner pressed charges at the chief public prosecutor's office in central Eskişehir province for the decision taken at a building meeting, claiming it is a breach of prohibition of discrimination, according to the article of Turkish daily Hürriyet.

The application was transferred to the TIHEK, which ruled that the decision taken at the building meeting is against Law 6701 of the TIHEK and imposed on the superintendent a TL 1,000 ($162) fine, which can be appealed in administrative courts in Ankara within 60 days.

The superintendent said that the decision was taken due to the fact that the owner who pressed charges was renting the flat as an office for people without a specific profession or licenses to operate, adding that this decision was never applied and one bachelor has been residing in a flat for over 10 years.

A written statement by the superintendent also said residents complained about the students due to noise and unpaid maintenance fees, while bachelors they knew to be construction workers resided in the flat in 2016 and 2017 without any obscuration from building administration.

The complainant said that de facto pressure by the building administration since 2014 was materialized by the administration's decision and the flat was marketed negatively as it cannot be rented to bachelors and students, which total up to 60,000 residents in the province of Eskişehir, known as a university city.