Member of Parliament Randolph Debattista took to social media so condemn the ‘shameful, disgusting and illegal’ advertisement by leading estate agent Alliance Real Estate after it accidentally published an internal comment.
The internal comment specified that the property should not be rented to ‘pakis, indians, Arabs and Philippines.’
Debattista called not just the agent’s advert ‘shameful, disgusting and illegal’, but ‘also the landlord’s restrictions in the first place.’
View this post on Instagram
A listing on the Alliance Real Estate website for a Żebbuġ apartment sparked controversy after including discriminatory language against certain nationalities.
The listing, which specified “no Pakis, Indians, Arabs, and Philippines” (sic), violated anti-discrimination laws. Alliance Real Estate apologized, explaining that the offensive wording resulted from an internal comment mistakenly published online.
The company emphasized that the comment reflected landlord restrictions, which they are obliged to enforce, though they acknowledged the language was inappropriate.
The listing was quickly removed from propertymarket.com.mt, and the description on Alliance’s site was edited to remove the offensive content. Alliance has since implemented stronger internal approval processes and pledged to use “kinder language” internally, even for comments not intended to be public.
The incident highlighted ongoing issues with landlords imposing discriminatory restrictions, which is illegal but, according to the company, still commonly requested by property owners.
#MaltaDaily
