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FINDING A COMMON TONGUE
WITH TENANTS
*Seattle Office for Civil Rights*
Even at the best of times, landlords and renters often think they speak completely different languages. So imagine the complications when the two parties to a rental contract really do speak a foreign tongue.
The world has never looked smaller in the Puget Sound region. You can hear languages from the four corners of the globe. Many property managers have had little experience renting to households where the leasees speak little or no English. Fair Housing laws, however, remain in effect-even if the parties to a rental agreement have trouble understanding each other. For Example:
A manager unwilling to negotiate a rental agreement with an applicant who speaks with a heavy accent may violate fair housing laws based on ancestry.
A manager's requirement that all applicants pass a US credit check may be discriminatory, if the prospective renter is a new immigrant who can show a good credit history or renter's history from him/her country of origin.
A manager's question such as, "Where do you come from?" or "How long have you lived in this country?" may be a fair housing violation based on national origin.
Communication problems can be most acute in the application and leasing process-especially given the uncertainty that is already built in to the screening process. Property managers should provide fair and equal services to all tenants and prospective tenants. Here are a few suggestions:
Be sure your new tenants understand what they are signing. (consider procuring an interpreter and if that is impractical, encourage the prospective tenant to bring a family member or a friend who can speak English. Many tenants will arrange interpretation on their own.)
Managers should be prepared and willing to help prospective tenants complete their applications. Often a tenant will have all the relevant information available among their personal papers, but may not be able to read the application well enough to know how to fill it out without help.
Managers may want to give prospective tenants the opportunity to take their application and/or rental agreement to a social-service agency that helps immigrants with translation and interpretation.
Managers should be prepared to be flexible about rules governing rental history and residential references. Some people may not have lived in the US long enough to acquire the necessary references.
All legal contracts may remain in English. Managers need not prepare legal papers in a tenant's first language. On the other hand, it just might be good business to arrange printed translations of important policies and procedures, such as rent payment policies, pet and noise rules, maintenance information, etc.
Managers might want to arrange cultural sensitivity training for their employees and themselves, in order to avoid misunderstandings and miscommunications down the road.
Good tenants speak a universal language. Working with non-English speaking prospective tenants is not simply a fair housing issue-it also can be a successful business strategy.
***Elliott Bronstein - For more information about SOCR visit their website at www.cityofseattle.net/civilrights
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