Mumbai Rental Market: Unmarried Couples Face Discrimination as Landlord Backs Out
A landlord in Mumbai's real estate market has sparked a heated debate on social media after cancelling a rental agreement with an unmarried couple at the last minute. The incident, shared by a tenant on Reddit, described how a flat finalised earlier in the day was abruptly withdrawn late at night after the landlord found a married couple willing to rent the same property.
Several Reddit users responded to the post by questioning why the tenant had not signed the rental agreement earlier. Some suggested that the situation might have been avoided if the agreement had been formalised in advance, advising tenants to ensure the contract is signed before the move-in date.
According to the post, the tenant and his partner had been searching for a place to rent in western Mumbai for several weeks and faced repeated rejections after disclosing they were an unmarried couple. The couple eventually finalised a 1BHK apartment in Malad East after meeting the owner through a broker. Rent terms were agreed verbally, and the move-in was scheduled for the following day.
“My girlfriend and I have spent the last few weeks going through the absolute circus that is finding a flat in Mumbai as an unmarried couple. Broker after broker, owner after owner, everything looks fine until they hear ‘unmarried couple’,” the post said.
The Redditor said the landlord called around 10 pm on the eve of the move-in, stating he was no longer comfortable renting the property to them. “When we kept asking what had suddenly changed in the last few hours, he finally admitted the real reason: he had found a married couple willing to pay the same rent. So, this absolute genius waited until the absolute last moment to suddenly develop a moral backbone. Because we thought this was finalised, we had cancelled another flat earlier today and lost ₹10,000 token money in the process. That place is gone now, too, because the owner rented it to someone else,” the Redditor said in the post.
The Redditor expressed frustration, stating that the landlord should have expressed his preference earlier rather than waiting until the last moment. “People love complaining about bad tenants in this city, but owners pulling garbage like this somehow gets normalised,” the Redditor said in the post.
Reddit users suggested that signing the agreement in advance could have prevented the situation. “How come you don't have a signed agreement beforehand? When were you going to sign it? Going forward, always sign an agreement before the move-in date. That gives you a few days of buffer in such situations,” one person said while replying to the Reddit post.
Another user echoed the same sentiment, saying, “The rent agreement needs to be signed, uploaded, and registered. Then there are other procedures, such as police verification and no objection from society. These things take time, like at least 3-4 days. You shouldn't have planned to move in without an agreement.”
Real estate consultants say renting to married versus unmarried couples remains a sensitive issue. “There are instances where the landlord is willing to rent out the property, but the housing society does not allow it. So the ecosystem is not fully ready yet,” said Ketan Joshi, a real estate consultant from Mumbai’s western suburbs. He added that such decisions often vary from society to society and locality to locality.
The incident highlights the ongoing challenges faced by unmarried couples in Mumbai's rental market, where societal norms and housing regulations often create barriers to finding suitable accommodation.
