Landlord refuses to rent €700 flat to waitress earning €1,200

The landlord does the maths: €700 rent on a €1,200 salary and a child

A 120-square-metre flat in Portonovo, in Sangenjo, for €700 a month. A salary of €1,200 as a waitress. That leaves €500 to eat, get around and raise a child. The owner did the sums, put them in writing and said no. The conversation ended up circulating and the rejection was read as discrimination. The nuance matters: she wasn't denied the flat for who she is, but for what she earns.

The 30% threshold: €700 on a €1,200 salary

The unwritten rule of the Spanish rental market is that rent should not exceed a third of income. With €1,200 on the payroll, that ceiling sits between €360 and €420. The flat in question is well over it: the rent would eat up around 58% of her salary, and that's without adding utilities or community fees. The permanent contract, moreover, is recent: it dates from March, not from a decade in the same job. Some argue that this detail weighs as much as the payslip, because a permanent contract of a few months does not guarantee continuity. The opposite reading starts from the same point and arrives elsewhere: someone who has been working for months and is paid on time should not be shut out of the market either. In the same town, flats are advertised from €350, and the landlord himself suggested looking at something for €500.

Is it discrimination to reject a tenant because of their salary?

The line between screening for creditworthiness and discriminating lies in the reason, not the result. The grounds protected under anti-discrimination law cover origin, sens, religion or disability. Ability to pay is not on that list. The comparison that gained most traction was the car dealership: nobody considers it discriminatory for a shop not to sell a Mercedes to someone with only two thousand euros. The problem is that a flat is not a Mercedes. And that the boundary blurs when screening is always applied to the same profiles, whoever carries it out.

Why do landlords avoid renting to families with children?

Because the cost of getting it wrong is measured in years. Current housing regulations make it harder to evict a tenant with a dependent minor until the local authority finds an alternative home. Translated into the landlord's language: non-payment becomes a problem with no expiry date. The market's response has been to screen before signing, with rent-default insurance covering the months before court and ever-finer payslip checks. None of these tools is illegal. All push in the same direction: fewer flats available to those with less margin for error.

Portonovo out of season: flats from €350

Outside summer, the town is almost empty: shops closed and hundreds of homes unoccupied. In high season, the same square metre is rented by the week. That dual market explains the surprise at the €700 and also the suspicion that it might suit the owner to keep the flat for July and August. The 120 square metres for two people add another argument to the list: some consider them disproportionate for that budget and point to the listing as proof that the problem was not only the salary.

From credit screening to background noise

The episode soon drifted into murkier terrain. Some reactions mixed the rejection with opinions on migration policy and welfare benefits, with generalisations unsupported by any fact of the case and that do not hold up. The strand closest to the issue pointed to another culprit: wages. A salary of €1,200 for a full-time job leaves whoever earns it out of the game in any tight market, and that is not fixed by changing landlord. The middle-ground proposal also appeared: take out rent-default insurance and stop arguing about the person.

Who pays for the mismatch when the landlord has the right to protect their rental income and the tenant has the right to access housing? For now, the waitress. And the flat is still advertised.