Equal-Treatment Listing Policy

Housing discrimination hurts real people and closes doors that should be open, whether it is by caste or surname, ethnicity or community, where someone comes from, religion, gender, marital or family status, occupation, language, health condition, or disability. Sahayogi is built so that finding a home depends on the home, not on who you are.

This is a condition of listing on Sahayogi: every listing must treat all seekers equally.

A listing must be open to every seeker. You may not exclude, discourage, screen out, single out, or express a preference against anyone on the ground of caste, surname or descent, ethnicity or community, origin or the district or region a person comes from, religion, gender, marital or family status, occupation, language, health condition, or disability, or on any similar ground. “No Dalit”, excluding particular surnames, “no single women”, “no widows”, and “Brahmin only” are all breaches.

This applies in every language, whether Nepali, English, or any other, and to every part of a listing: the title, description, unit or room names, house rules, terms and conditions, notes to seekers, photographs and captions. It applies just as much to the messages you send, the questions you put to a seeker, and any way you filter seekers through Sahayogi.

It applies whether the exclusion is direct or indirect. A requirement, preference, or house rule that is not written in those terms, but that in practice keeps people out on one of those grounds, is still a breach. In listings it usually arrives as a surname filter, a “vegetarian only” or “no non-veg cooking” rule standing in for caste, a “family only” or “cultured family” preference, or a preference for people from a particular district. What a rule does in practice decides it, not how it is worded.

Honest facts about the property and the tenancy are always welcome: the category of the space (room, flat, shutter), the rent, deposit and advance, the notice period, and genuine occupancy limits set by the size and layout of the unit and applied to everyone equally.

House rules are fine when they apply to all occupants equally and are not used in place of one of the grounds above.

These specific kinds of accommodation may be reserved, and saying so plainly is not a breach: accommodation genuinely operated as women-only or men-only, and described as such; accommodation for students or employees of a named institution, or operated by or on behalf of one; accommodation genuinely adapted for and reserved for people with disabilities or older people; and a room or shared unit inside a home where the owner or the owner’s family lives and shares a kitchen or bathroom, where the only preference stated is as to gender.

Nothing on that list permits a listing to exclude, prefer, screen, or express a preference on the ground of caste, surname or descent, ethnicity or community, origin, or occupation. There is no exception to that, in any circumstances.

A simple test: describe the home and its rules, not the kind of person you will or won’t rent to.

Listings are screened automatically for discriminatory wording in Nepali and English, and anything the screen flags goes to a human moderator. A flag alone never removes a listing, and it never blocks you from saving.

A listing that violates this policy will be asked to change or be unpublished. Repeated violations affect your account standing on Sahayogi and can lead to removal.

If you find a listing that excludes people, use the Report action on the listing page. Every report is reviewed by our team, and you’ll be notified of the outcome.