A letting agency has only a few available viewing appointments and many enquiries. The first bottleneck therefore arises before the tenancy agreement: who is allowed to see the flat at all? For this step it is not enough to have only the later contract version checked. The rules according to which enquiries are read and appointments allocated also form part of a responsible letting process.
This article applies to Germany. It links a narrowly described court case with our own organisational recommendations. It does not create an automatic selection rule and does not confirm any concrete applicant or compensation claim.
The court case: identical starting data, different names
On 29 January 2026 the Bundesgerichtshof decided on enquiries about tenancy viewings. In the case underlying the decision, enquiries under names sounding Pakistani were unsuccessful, while otherwise comparable enquiries under German names led to prospects of appointments. The actual comparative circumstances were evaluated in the proceedings. [BGH]
The BGH assigned the agency entrusted by the landlord with appointment allocation or the selection of interested parties itself to the prohibition of discrimination in § 19 Absatz 2 AGG; under the statutory conditions its own liability may be considered. [BGH] The practical conclusion is not that every refusal would automatically be unlawful. It is: the preliminary selection process cannot be treated as inconsequential administration outside one’s own responsibility.
Clarify the actual task before the first enquiry
Describe what is being allocated: an appointment, a further check or already a decision on the contract. These stages should not merge unnoticed. An invitation is not a tenancy offer, a factual follow-up question is not already a final rejection.
Set organisationally who reads enquiries and who may decide on a justified deviation. A deputy needs the same comprehensible working basis. If every person uses their own spontaneous rules, no one will later be able to reconstruct why similar enquiries were treated differently.
Criteria must refer to the actual question
Our editorial recommendation: before using any criterion, check which object-related task it fulfils and whether its admissibility has been clarified. An available mutual appointment or a still missing essential detail will be handled differently to a mere assumption about a person.
Name, presumed origin and expectations about behaviour derived from it are not a factually confirmed statement about the concrete application. An office should not package such assumptions into seemingly neutral shorthand such as “does not fit into the building”. A client’s wish is also not declared an admissible internal rule without examination.
For the legal framework the different fields of application of § 19 AGG must be considered. The provision there on not more than 50 flats does not, indiscriminately, affect every prohibition of discrimination; in particular it does not replace an examination in the case of discrimination due to ethnic origin. [AGG] Special statutory exceptions are not dealt with by a rough number of units as if settled.
A hypothetical office comparison shows the difference
In the first procedure one person sorts enquiries by presumed name background and then writes in general that there are no appointments available. In the second procedure the team documents the actual appointment inventory and processes enquiries according to criteria clarified as appropriate beforehand. An open piece of information is actively queried instead of being replaced by an assumption.
The second procedure is not only thereby legally watertight because it is documented. Its strength as an organisational method lies in making actual reasons visible and controllable. A subsequently invented justification would not improve the decision.
Handle follow-up questions and complaints factually
If a hint of differential treatment is received, the specific case is examined: the affected listing, the enquiry, appointment status, reply and the decision basis actually used. The person who examines the hint should be able to recognise what was observed and what so far is only alleged.
Existing relevant messages are not subsequently “tidied up” to make the process look nicer. At the same time this does not create a recommendation to keep indefinitely all private details of all interested parties. Required scope, access and retention are clarified in accordance with the concrete task.
Understand responsibility as an ongoing way of working
After an identified organisational weakness, not only a friendlier rejection template is created. The team checks whether criteria, responsibilities or follow-up channels need to be changed. A new formulation cannot repair a problematic actual selection reason.
The benefit of a properly prepared procedure lies in handling enquiries on the basis of an explainable task. It does not guarantee anyone the conclusion of a tenancy agreement. But it does show that even the route to a viewing appointment contains a real decision about people and must therefore be treated with corresponding care.