This Facebook-based Indian startup fights landlord-tenant discrimination

New Delhi : In 2014, a law student was crying and unsure of her next move as she sat outside her apartment with her bags and books at midnight. This was her first time renting an apartment in a new city, and she had to give it up because of problems with the landlord, her roommates, and the community at large.

Every broker she contacted either showed her subpar apartments, demanded upfront brokerage payments (which she made till she was destitute), or set up interviews with upper-class individuals who promptly rejected her. She was well aware of the illegality of conducting interviews of this nature, but felt she had no choice.

Together with her friend Chirag Pandya, an MBA in Marketing, Finance, and Human Resources, she started a Facebook group called “Flat and Flatmates Ahmedabad” with ten members and a mission to “build a community, help each other find flats and flatmates, filter good brokers and properties, help people avoid scams and scandals, raise awareness in societies and tenants regarding their rights and responsibilities, emergency accommodation, and SOS Co.”

In time, Flat and Flatmates grew to serve over 115 locations around the world and 25 lakh users.

The staff fields an average of one hundred calls per day, helping to mediate disputes between landlords, tenants, societies, and real estate agents, as well as inspecting the legitimacy of paying guest facility providers, reviewing and blacklisting properties, and identifying and eliminating the most recent cyber financial crimes.

Adv. Priya Sogani, the company’s co-founder, believes that one of the main reasons new members are disappointed while searching for a property on rent is that they want it to be an instant solution. If you want to find the greatest house within your price range, you need to take small actions like monitoring your spam folder, leaving polite messages on requirement posts, and checking the group for new posts every two hours for a few months.

I have been quite clear about this with everyone who has messaged me directly inquiring about renting an apartment. After waiting for a while, I usually get a message from them telling me that they found a flat from the group, and this is what keeps us motivated to keep working.

Yet, managing this nonprofit organisation is challenging. Volunteers are in short supply for face-to-face tasks. These days, it’s impossible to avoid being bombarded with online feedback and recommendations. The present group is quite helpful in mediating tenant disputes outside of the court system. In contrast, the number of instances always seems to increase at a rate that much exceeds the number of willing participants.