100,000 and the society management ignored his parents' requests to meet them over the issue.

In the BBC report, an undercover reporter posing as a landlord was told by one estate agent employee, recorded covertly: 'You can tell as soon as they speak, you can't tell by looking at them; particularly the Eastern Europeans.

'We say to the migrants - well, which ones do you want to look at? Then we ring them back and say? 'Sorry, well, that one's gone'.'

British discrimination lawyers, as well as other estate agents, said landlords making such illegal demands on estate agents should be turned away immediately.

Arpita Dutt of the law firm Russell Jones and Walker, said: 'What they should be saying is, 'I can't do this, I can't act on those instructions. I can get you the best tenant for your property and try to meet those needs. But if I did it in the way you are asking me to do it, then that's against the law'.'

'It feels like we may as well, in some cases, be going back to the days of 'no blacks, no dogs, no Irish', because that's what is being perpetuated at the moment by some of the agents and the landlords.'

Award-winning human rights lawyer Louise Christian told the BBC: 'I felt horrified, that in this modern day, the provision of housing is being withheld from people who need it because of their nationality or their race. Housing is an essential service that everyone needs over their head.'