Cottage rental denied because of “foreign”-sounding name? I am shocked and not sure how to respond to this situation.

46 comments

  3. I’d guess the English rather than just surname. No idea about their reasons. Might not want to deal with potentially foreign tourists and risk not being able to go after them. Might not want to communicate in English, the sentence is not quite correct either.

    But I don’t think there’s much you can do. If they don’t want to, they won’t

  6. In your situation I would forward the email to whoever manages the website where you found the listing. I assume that goes against their usage policy.

  7. Lol. Welcome to Finland. I was shocked before but normalized it. That’s how it works here. But you can publish it in their reviews and report to media. The media will roast them.

  10. The owner may not be fluent with English based on his/her response, so I guess they just don’t want to deal with a English-speaking customer. I’m sure you can find a better cottage.

  13. It will be the fact a) the English (probably older person)
    b) assumes you are a tourist so can’t find you if anything went wrong.

  16. Might be a minority opinion, but a person can choose freely who to house in their own cottage which might also be their own holiday house. There are so many horror stories of foreign visitors for example missusing the fireplace, messing up with the heating system, damaging equipment etc. that the person might not be comfortable renting to someone he cannot communicate effectively with.

    Only reasonable action here is to move forward and look for next suitable cabin.

  17. In Finland people tend to not make an unreasonably large fuss about minor incidents like this. Calm down and move on, this is not America.

  18. When I’ve visited cottages, they usually have an instruction folder many pages long. They are usually in Finnish.

  19. Probably some old person who has had bad experience with foreigners, and would rather wait for one of his own kind to rent the place.

    Totally understandable.

  21. This should not at all be acceptable.
    If the person does not speak English they should state it and say that for this reason it might be difficult to sign a contract and rent. But this behavior is at least borderline illegal.

  22. If I advertise to rent out my cottage and someone writes to me in Chinese, I’m not going to rent to them either. Not because I hate Chinese but because if I can’t communicate with them, I don’t want them in my cottage.

    You wrote to the person in english. Was the ad in English? If the ad was in finnish, it’s clearly a language question, not an ethnicity thing.

  23. A lot of older folks have weak english skills. A lot of people are jumping to the conclusion that the guy is racist. You don’t know that, stop. It could very well be ethnicity thing, but it could also not be.

  24. Finns are often too shy to even speak one word of English when they think they don’t have enough language skills in English. Don’t get offended. You can try to propose to rent again by using Finnish to see if there is anything to be offended, you can just say I can speak Finnish of this is the problem.

  25. Private person can choose self who are they going to rent their property.

    For example I dont rent my apartments to gipsies, and never will. When they call me or mail me, I simply reply that no thank you.

  27. It’s the same in employment. Many firms don’t want to hire foreigners. Welcome to the 1950s. 😉

  28. Hold your horses. Before you go balls deep calling racism here and crying “how dare they”, there might be a good reasoning behind this.

    I am a Finn, and had foreign ex gf’s from minorities so very allergic to discrimination myself but things are not always so black and white :

    The person who is renting their property might have had their property vandalized + customer vanished afterwards, leaving them to pay for it. If you are a Finn, it will be extremely hard to do that here (culture + reach by the officials/police) and NOT get caught. With a tourist it might be much harder for the owner to get a hold of you afterwards. I know of many people (especially seniors) who after many tries end up renting to Finnish customers only because they are just so much easier to track down in case something goes wrong. Not saying that tourists cause problems (you seen what drunken Finnish 20-year olds can do to your place?) But nonetheless, it is just so much easier to get compensated with Finnish guests than tourists.

    Also the fact that they used the word “sorry” means they probably don’t mean no harm or to discriminate. In our culture the word sorry is not used for light politeness but actual, honest apology. They could’ve been much more blunt about it but for me as a Finn the “sorry” added in the end means “Massive apologies, I feel your pain. I hope you understand”.

  29. You use English, but assume the response is about your foreign name instead of the use of a foreign language. Might be discrimination, might be racism, but might also be just somebody not comfortable with dealing with non Finnish speaking customers. Even if you’d ask, you’ll never be sure of the answer anyway, is it worth it?
    If that is the last cottage available, or the last affordable, I’d personally try to enlist a Finnish speaker help to see if it is only a communication level problem.
    Otherwise just let it go.

  30. This comment section is unbelievable.

    Finns need to get their heads out of their asses and understand that we’re fucked without people moving here from abroad, enjoying their time here, and putting down roots here. You keep encouraging and allowing this kind of **illegal** behavior and foreigners will definitely choose to go elsewhere.

    Stop being so ignorant and read the news:

    6.2.2023 [Työperäinen maahanmuutto kaksinkertaistettava](https://www.verkkouutiset.fi/a/virkamiesraportti-julki-tyoperainen-maahanmuutto-kaksinkertaistettava/#fe768cb9)

    3.2.2023 [Työperäinen maahanmuutto kolminkertaistettava](https://yle.fi/a/74-20016170)

  31. Isn’t it illegal to refuse renting a place to someone based on their origin though? Serious question. Finnish non-discrimination act states something like that but I don’t know if cottage renting is applicable?

  35. If you are not foreign, why didn’t you use Finnish (or Swedish) then? Surname doesn’t matter if you don’t use the local language! Is it so that residents of Finland assume they don’t need to learn Finnish when living in Finland?

    Perkele. Tämä ei ole englanninkielinen maa, vaikka kuinka jotkut niin kuvittelevat.

  37. My mother stopped renting her beach house to foreigners here in the USA. She got fed up with them leaving a massive mess that would take several days to clean. They stole small things more often and disturbed our neighbors more often (mostly just being loud).

  38. Is this a private person or rental agency? If it’s private and cottage this is legal but if you would try to rent a house to live in this would be discrimination.
    They don’t need to service you in English only in Swedish or Finnish.

    Seems people like to like draw the racist card this could be it. If you are using email it is usually easy to dig a hole for racist people to fall into. Just send a email in Finnish I do understand and can write English and see if the bell changes sound.

    At the same time it could be a person that doesn’t not speak English or feels communication is hard and doesn’t really care enough the price they are renting on. Or feel they cannot provide good service or fix problems if they arrives.

    People usually seem to have bad experiences renting cabins to foreigners. Especially Yankee’s as they seem to think they can live like animals for week or two and then pay 50€ to fix huge mess. But this is also a stereotype and not really related in incidents with foreigners vs Nationals. As they have 10 foreigners and 100 Nationals and 10 make same mess as 1 foreigners.

    Seems to be long winded to say that the is racist in Finland but also nativity and ignorance.

    I think it’s easiest to live when not thinking ignorance is always malice.

    If you have link to the ad or the site.

  39. Imo, the owner could be an older person who is not very good in communicating in English or does not want to deal with tourists because they are harder to chase when something happens.

    If you really want to get to the bottom of it, have someone message the person in Finnish but sign it with a foreign name. How he responds is how you’ll get your answer.

  40. I have a cottage in Lapland, but I don’t ren’t out. What I have heard from neighbors that rent, there have been incidents such as lost or damaged property. I can perfectly understand if someone wants to limit to whom they rent their property.

  41. This sort of discrimination is widely accepted in Finland. As you can see from other answers, people bend over backwards to find excuses to justify it.

    There is an important difference in posture between making a little effort to overcome communication issues, and using a language difference as a way to plausibility obfuscate discrimination. Specially over written communication, when translation services are so easily available.

    I do not expect this mentality to change anytime soon, mainly because there are always a million excuses available.

  43. The ”sorry” in the end is in fact a finn trying to be polite. That is why I am leaning towards not racism, but instead not wanting any hassle in foreign language. The cottage may have a lot of inquiries so they choose the easy way out.

  44. They want to be able to get insurance from you if the cottage ends up destroyed. Many owners refuse to rent to Russian tourists for this precise reason. A friend gave an example, cottage completely destroyed, TV stolen and literal shit on the bathroom floor after they broke the toilet, and no way to get hold of them afterwards.

  45. Well it is their property so if they want they can decide who they rent to, for example if they have had bad experiences with tourists, but sure if its just the name then that just means they don’t like foreigner.

  46. There has been several cases in finnish rental cottages where the tourists trash the place or do severe water damage and then leave the country. Guess who’s gonna be left to pay for everything? The owner.

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