Landlord bars Indian banker from viewing Mid-Levels unit

A New York investment banker who has just arrived in Hong Kong says he was barred from viewing a Mid-Levels flat because of his race.

Amit, 25, was told by his property agent that the landlord of the Bonham Road flat did not want an Indian tenant and would not let him look at the apartment.

The agent said the attitude was very common, with '90 to 95 per cent of landlords in Mid-Levels specifying they do not want Indians'.

'It has reached the point where now, whenever we have an Indian customer, we will ask the landlord: 'can you accept an Indian', so that we don't waste time showing flats and in the end the landlord rejects the tenant,' she said.

Amit is Indian but has lived in the US for the past six years and moved to Hong Kong last week to take up a job in finance. 'I had heard about cases in Hong Kong where Indian tenants have been rejected because we cook 'smelly' food, so I actually assured the property agent I would not be cooking at home,' he said.

The property agent said she had told the landlord that this prospective tenant was a 'modern Indian who did not wear a cloth on his head' and had lived in New York for a long time.