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Fergus Wilson
Millionaire landlord Fergus Wilson has lost his court battle with the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA
Millionaire landlord Fergus Wilson has lost his court battle with the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

Landlord’s ban on ‘coloured’ tenants is unlawful, court rules

This article is more than 6 years old

Equality watchdog wins case against Fergus Wilson, who barred south Asians from renting his properties

The buy-to-let mogul Fergus Wilson’s ban on “coloured” tenants because they allegedly left curry smells in his properties has been overturned in a court victory for the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

At Maidstone county court, the judge, Richard Polden, granted an injunction against the landlord. “This policy clearly amounts to discrimination,” Polden said. “I find the policy is unlawful. Such a policy has no place in our society.”

Polden added that it was clear Wilson had indeed sent the email to his letting agent. “I reject Mr Wilson’s case that this was a joke. This has been raised for the first time [in court]. This was not consistent with his pre-action correspondence with the EHRC.”

It emerged in March that Wilson, 69, who at one time owned almost 1,000 homes across Ashford and Maidstone in Kent, had emailed a local letting agency, Evolution, saying: “No coloured people because of the curry smell at the end of the tenancy.”

The court heard how Wilson had repeatedly asserted his right to bar Indians and Pakistanis in correspondence and calls to the EHRC.

In one exchange, he told the equality watchdog: “I refuse to take tenants from a group of people that produce curry smells. I take just about anyone except Pakistanis and Indians.”

Bethan Harris, acting for the EHRC, told the court that “at no point did Mr Wilson deny the existence of the letting policy” and that he had persistently refused to give the organisation an undertaking that he would not continue with it.

Wilson called the EHRC’s action “political correctness gone mad”. He told the court it was an “economic decision” to reject south Asian tenants and that he was not racist.

The landlord, whose personal wealth has been estimated at £200m-£250m, represented himself in court but was repeatedly admonished by the judge for bringing up issues that were not relevant to the case.

Wilson’s defence ranged from asserting that the email containing the ban on “coloureds” was just a joke and banter with a young letting agent, through to defending it on behalf of all landlords.

He also suggested that rent guarantee insurance – required by buy-to-let lenders – would not be offered to south Asians because claims rates were too high.

He told the court: “The reality is that with some of the rent insurers, if your name is Patel, you won’t get a rent guarantee as you are more likely to claim on it.”

Speaking after the injunction was granted, Wilson said he was unlikely to challenge the decision. “I’m not sure I wish to appeal. I’m retiring soon.”

He claimed that potential buy-to-let landlords would not enter the sector because of the ruling. “My only concern is for people who would have been coming into buy to let but now will not. Public opinion has been on my side throughout.”

Wilson was ordered to pay costs of about £2,500, a figure he said was likely to be much less than the EHRC had spent pursuing him. His future as a landlord remains unclear. He failed to sell his entire estate to investors and has been disposing of property on a piecemeal basis for several years.

The landlord said he now owned 350 buy-to-let homes, reinvesting the cash from sales into farmland he hoped would qualify for planning permission.

In a parting shot to the court, where Wilson has appeared regularly for hearings in evictions, he said he was heading into retirement and that “I don’t know what you will do without me”.

Responding to the court decision, Rebecca Hilsenrath, the chief executive of the EHRC, said: “We welcome this outlawing by the court of Mr Wilson’s discriminatory letting policy. Our homes are fundamental to our private lives and to who we are. Denial of a home on the grounds of race or colour is abhorrent conduct we do not accept in today’s society.

“There are still deep inequalities in our country, as our race report earlier this year demonstrated, and sadly some of the causes of those inequalities were illustrated by Mr Wilson’s comments over the summer. However, today takes us one step closer to a more equal Britain.”

More on this story

More on this story

  • Buy-to-let millionaire who bans 'coloured' people faces legal action

  • Landlord investigated over 'disgusting remark' about 'coloured' people

  • Days of the buy-to-let landlord are numbered, says Fergus Wilson

  • Fergus Wilson sells buy-to-let property empire to foreign consortium

  • Property tycoon Fergus Wilson hits back after criticism of mass evictions

  • Landlords 'may turn away people on benefits when universal credit comes in'

  • What the housing benefit tenants say

  • Buy-to-let landlord says housing benefit claimants owe him £1m

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