Published 17 March 2026, The Telegraph website: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/17/woman-rejected-for-job-because-her-car-was-too-old/

Woman rejected for job because her car was too old

Estate agent bars traineeship application from 18-year-old whose 2014 car had only 40,000 miles on the clock.

A woman was rejected for a trainee estate agent job because her car was too old.

Alanah Thompson French, 18, applied to be a trainee lettings negotiator with Haart in December 2025 but was denied an interview because she drove a 2014 Citroën C1.

The estate agency told her that candidates were required to “have access to a vehicle under 10 years old”.

Alanah works full time as a barista in Burton Joyce, Nottinghamshire, and spent more than a year in two cafe jobs to pay for the £2,800 car. It has fewer than 40,000 miles on the clock.

She said it was not made clear to her that ticking a box on Haart’s online application form to indicate that her car was more than 10 years old would exclude her from the role.

Haart told the BBC that its policy was based on “evidence from motoring organisations” that mechanical problems were more likely in older vehicles.

Alanah’s mother, Jenni French, told The Telegraph that if it had been clear that the car would bar Alanah from the job, she might have found the money to help her daughter buy a new vehicle.

Ms French added: “Haart didn’t ask anything about the state of the car, or how long Alanah had been driving, just if her car was less than 10 years old. Then she got the rejection email.”

Alanah said she would have accepted a rejection based on ability, but this seemed to be based on affluence, noting that insurance was expensive for young people on newer cars.

‘I was really proud of her’

Ms French said: “She’d been working at Starbucks to earn money and then she saved up to buy this car, because she needed to get to work, and wanted to have a life, and everything else you do as a young person. As her mum, I was really proud of her.”

Ms French added that she had never seen such a requirement on a job application herself.Alanah told the BBC: “It’s just a bit of a kick in the teeth... It doesn’t seem fair because how am I meant to afford a bigger and better car? And how am I meant to get insured?”

Haart told the BBC: “Evidence from motoring organisations shows that the likelihood of mechanical problems increases as vehicles get older.

“For that reason, and in line with many organisations that require staff to use their own cars for work purposes, our policy is that vehicles should normally be under 10 years old.”

Haart was approached for comment.