Thousands of listing for rental properties on two popular websites explicitly say children or pets are not welcome.

A BBC analysis of Zoopla, where listings are uploaded only by agents, and OpenRent – where landlords directly upload –  found that 24 per cent of OpenRent ads said families were not allowed to rent the homes. This accounted for about 1,800 of just under 8,000 in the sample looked at by the BBC.

Over 300 Zoopla listings explicitly said children were not wanted, although this was less than one per cent of the sample. 

Some 73 per cent of sampled OpenRent listings said tenants with pets were not welcome, compared with six per cent on Zoopla.

Such statements and bans are by no means illegal although blanket bans on tenants with children in Wales and Scotland are considered by some legal experts as a likely breach of the Equality Act, particularly if considered to discriminate against women.

The Property Ombudsman said earlier this year that blanket bans on renting to families breached its code of practice because they disproportionately affect women, who are more likely to live with their children.

Lettings agents’ trade body Propertymark told the BBC in response to the survey that a government cap on deposits in England made landlords more wary of damage by pets; the National Residential Landlords Association said it recognised how important pets were to many tenants and that any bans on children reflected “the actions of a minority of rogue landlords”.

An OpenRent spokesperson said it was clear that when a landlord did not accept children or pets this actually helped tenants “prioritise their searches” and that “the decision of who to let to is entirely with the landlord”; Zoopla said 95 per cent of its listings had no references to pets or children and there was no evidence of agencies enforcing blanket bans on either.

* In separate research for the BBC, Zoopla says about 4,000 landlord homes have been listed for sale every month in London so far this year.