Questions of Racism for London Estate Agents

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A government commission is launching an investigation of London estate agents after a documentary appeared to show agents discriminating against black people looking for rentals.

A reporter for the BBC program Inside Out posed as a landlord who didn't want his apartment rented to African-Caribbean people. He recorded 10 estate agents who agreed not to rent to black clients. The agents acknowledged the anti-discrimination laws, but said they bar black clients by saying the apartment was already rented or simply refusing to return phone calls.

"We can not be shown [to be] discriminating against a community," one agent told the reporter. "But obviously we've got our ways around that, you don't have to tell us that - because we, you know, like yourself, 99 percent of my landlords don't want Afro-Caribbeans, or any troublesome people."

In another example shown on the program, a white client was shown the apartment while a black client was told the apartment was rented.

A spokesman for the Equality and Human Rights Commission says the group is following up on the issues raised by the program.

"It is against the law and totally wrong to discriminate against people on the basis of their ethnicity," the spokesman said. "We have received BBC Inside Out's findings and will be talking to the property ombudsman and the trade bodies for estate agents to see what can be done urgently to stamp out these unacceptable practices."

Anti-discrimination laws have been in place for years in the U.K., but discrimination issues continue in the property industry, critics charge.

"This kind of behaviour was outlawed nearly 50 years ago, but to find discrimination of that sort going on in London is really shocking," Labour's communities secretary Hilary Benn told reporters.