Equality Act 2010: A Landlord's Guide to Discrimination Law

Two separate laws now cover discrimination in letting

The Equality Act 2010 is the general framework — nine protected characteristics, direct and indirect discrimination, and a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled tenants. Since 1 May 2026, the Renters' Rights Act 2025 added a second, standalone scheme banning discrimination against tenants with children or on benefits. They overlap but are enforced differently. Read the Renters' Rights Act 2025 hub.

The Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful for a landlord or letting agent to discriminate against an applicant or tenant because of a protected characteristic — race, disability, sex, and six others — in selecting tenants, setting terms, managing a tenancy, or ending it. This guide covers the nine protected characteristics, six types of unlawful conduct, the reasonable-adjustments duty, the limited exceptions, and how the Act interacts with the newer Renters' Rights Act 2025 ban.

At a glance

• Who this is for: private landlords and letting agents in England and Wales letting residential property to applicants or existing tenants.
• Governing law: Equality Act 2010, Part 4 (sections 32–38) and Schedule 4 (reasonable adjustments); Renters' Rights Act 2025, sections 33–38 (children and benefits — correct as at July 2026).
• Key figure: Renters' Rights Act 2025 civil penalties of up to £7,000 per breach, escalating for continuous or repeat breaches (correct as at July 2026).
• Where to complain: Equality Act matters go through the county court or the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS); Renters' Rights Act 2025 discrimination goes through the local authority.

The nine protected characteristics

Section 4 of the Equality Act 2010 lists nine protected characteristics. A landlord cannot treat an applicant or tenant less favourably because of: age; disability (a physical or mental impairment with a substantial, long-term adverse effect on day-to-day activities); gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity (including a defined period after childbirth); race (colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin); religion or belief (including having none); sex; and sexual orientation.

All nine are equally protected — the Act does not rank them. Where more than one applies at once, such as a disabled tenant from an ethnic minority background, each is assessed independently.

Six things that count as unlawful conduct

A landlord can fall foul of more than one of these at the same time.

1. Direct discrimination (section 13) — treating someone less favourably because of a protected characteristic, such as refusing a tenancy because of race or sexual orientation. Intent is irrelevant.

2. Indirect discrimination (section 19) — a rule that looks neutral but disadvantages a protected group in practice and cannot be justified. A strict income multiple applied without counting benefit income is the clearest example — exactly what two county courts found in the "No DSS" cases below. UK-only employment history and strict English-fluency requirements are others.

3. Discrimination arising from disability (section 15) — unfavourable treatment because of something connected to a disability rather than the disability itself, applying even where the landlord ought reasonably to have known of it.

4. Failure to make reasonable adjustments — covered below.

5. Harassment (section 26) — unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic that violates someone's dignity or creates a hostile or offensive environment.

6. Victimisation (section 27) — subjecting someone to a detriment because they made, or are believed to have made, a discrimination complaint. Harassment that is repeated or targeted may separately engage the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

Reasonable adjustments for disabled tenants

Sections 20 and 21, applied to premises by Schedule 4, place a positive duty on landlords to adjust where a disabled tenant or applicant would otherwise be at a substantial disadvantage — because of a policy or practice, the absence of an auxiliary aid, or (more narrowly) a physical feature of common parts.

The duty does not require a landlord to alter or remove a physical feature of the let dwelling itself — structural changes, widening doorways, fitting a permanent ramp. Where a tenancy term blocks a disabled tenant from making their own alterations, the landlord may have to relax that term so far as necessary, though the tenant typically bears the cost and reinstatement. Usually reasonable and low-cost: allowing an assistance dog, large-print or accessible paperwork, minor fittings like grab rails, and adjusted communication for sensory disabilities. The duty only bites once a request is made, and "reasonable" depends on cost, practicality, and the effect on other occupiers.

Assistance dogs and "no pets" clauses

A landlord's standard "no pets" clause cannot be used as a blanket refusal of an assistance dog needed because of a disability. Assistance dogs are recognised under the reasonable-adjustments duty, and refusing one outright without considering the individual circumstances risks a discrimination claim regardless of what the tenancy agreement says.

This is separate from the Renters' Rights Act 2025's general pet right, which gives every tenant — not just disabled ones — a statutory right to request a pet and stops landlords running a blanket "no pets" policy at all. See Pets in a Rental Property for the 28-day response deadline and the grounds on which a landlord can still refuse.

Where the Act applies in a letting

Part 4 (sections 32–38) covers selection — marketing, referencing, and the decision to grant or refuse a tenancy (section 33, disposals; section 34, permission for disposal); management — the terms offered and how the tenant may use the property (section 35); and termination, which is unlawful for a discriminatory reason even where the landlord also has an otherwise valid possession ground.

The duty falls on landlords directly and on letting agents acting for them. Instructing an agent to discriminate does not shield the landlord, and an agent who discriminates without the landlord's knowledge is separately liable in their own right.

Limited exceptions

Two narrow exceptions in Schedule 5 are narrower than landlords sometimes assume:

• Owner-occupier private disposal — where an owner-occupier lets without using an estate agent or public advertising, the letting decision itself (section 33) is exempt for every protected characteristic except race — race discrimination remains unlawful even for this private letting decision (Schedule 5, para 1(3)). The narrower religion-or-belief and sexual-orientation carve-out applies to a different act — giving permission for a disposal (section 34) — not the letting decision itself (Schedule 5, para 1(4)). Separately, the reasonable-adjustments duty is disapplied if the property is, or has been, the landlord's only or main home and no agent or manager was used.
• Small premises / resident landlord — where the landlord (or a close relative) lives in another part of genuinely small shared accommodation (broadly, no more than two other households, or six people besides the resident's own household), protection is disapplied for every characteristic except race, which is never exempt.

Neither exception applies to a self-contained property the landlord does not live in — the great majority of private tenancies.

How the Renters' Rights Act 2025 changed the picture

Before 1 May 2026, refusing a tenant on benefits or with children relied on the Equality Act's indirect discrimination provisions and case law, not a named ban. Two 2020 county court cases are widely reported to have established the principle: at York, a letting agent's blanket "no DSS" policy was reported to have been found unlawful indirect sex and disability discrimination, since a higher proportion of women and disabled people rely on housing-related benefits; Birmingham was reported to have reached the same conclusion for a disabled father refused on the same grounds. Landlords should treat this as settled practice rather than rely on the county court reasoning itself, since the Renters' Rights Act 2025 (below) now provides the operative statutory rule.

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 turned that case-law principle into an express statutory ban, and went further. Sections 33 to 38 create a separate scheme from the Equality Act 2010, in force since 1 May 2026: section 33 bars stopping someone enquiring about, viewing, or renting because a child would live there or visit, subject to a proportionate-means-of-a-legitimate-aim exception (a genuine retirement development, or documented HMO safety concerns); section 34 bars the same conduct against benefits claimants, with no exception at all; and sections 35–38 strip discriminatory clauses of effect wherever they appear — tenancy, superior lease, mortgage, or insurance contract — so a landlord cannot rely on a mortgage or insurance condition as a defence (subject to narrow, time-limited transitional protection for pre-1 May 2026 insurance).

Landlords can still apply an income requirement, provided it is applied consistently and all income — including benefits — is counted equally; refusing solely because a set threshold isn't met is not, by itself, a breach.

Two regimes, two routes to complain

A single act can breach both laws — refusing a disabled tenant on benefits with children could trigger an Equality Act claim and two separate Renters' Rights Act 2025 breaches. The enforcement routes differ:

	Equality Act 2010	Renters' Rights Act 2025 (ss.33–38)
Covers	9 protected characteristics	Children and benefits status only
Enforced by	County court claim; Equality and Human Rights Commission for systemic issues	Local authority civil penalty
Complaint route	Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS)	Local authority; also redress schemes and civil proceedings
Maximum penalty	Damages, including injury to feelings, set by the court	Civil penalty up to £7,000 per breach, escalating

Practical compliance for landlords

• Set written selection criteria before viewings and apply them consistently — income threshold counting all income sources equally, no unresolved CCJs, a contactable previous-landlord reference, and right-to-rent status checked the same way for every applicant.
• Never write "no DSS", "no benefits", or "no children" into an advert, a tenancy term, or an instruction to a letting agent — unlawful under the Renters' Rights Act 2025, and risks an Equality Act claim too.
• Treat reasonable-adjustment requests seriously and in writing. Most cost little or nothing.
• Brief any letting agent acting for you — you remain liable for their discriminatory conduct even if you did not instruct it.
• Check any mortgage or insurance term restricting lets to benefit claimants or families — since 1 May 2026 it has no legal effect and is not a defence.

Penalties and remedies

Under the Equality Act 2010, a successful claimant can recover county court damages, which may include an award for injury to feelings. Employment tribunals assess such awards against the Vento bands — currently £1,300–£12,600 for less serious cases, up to £37,700–£62,900 for the most serious (from 6 April 2026) — and county courts commonly draw on the same bands by analogy in housing discrimination claims, though they are not bound to. The EHRC can also investigate systemic discrimination and issue an unlawful act notice.

Under the Renters' Rights Act 2025, a local authority can issue a civil penalty of up to £7,000 for a first breach, a further £7,000 for a continuous breach persisting beyond 28 days, and up to £7,000 again for a repeat breach within 5 years — on top of the original penalty. A tenant can also pursue a letting agent redress scheme or civil proceedings (correct as at July 2026).

Get help

• Equality Act 2010 (legislation.gov.uk) and guidance (GOV.UK).
• Rental discrimination under the Renters' Rights Act 2025 (GOV.UK).
• Equality Advisory and Support Service — for Equality Act complaints.
• Equality and Human Rights Commission — guidance and, in systemic cases, enforcement.
• Your local authority's private rented sector team — for a Renters' Rights Act 2025 children/benefits complaint.
• Shelter England and Citizens Advice — free advice for tenants.

This page is general information for landlords, not legal advice on your specific circumstances. It covers the position in England as at July 2026; Wales has separate arrangements under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016. If a case looks likely to reach court, or a local authority has opened an investigation, get advice from a regulated solicitor before responding.