Can we insist on tenants that speak English?

[DexyMidnight]

Looking for opinions / advice on a potentially thorny issue.

We are looking to rent out the main family home in London (we have had a BTL flat for three years, so have some experience of being landlords).

As we will be based overseas, it is really important to us that our tenants can communicate with us in English (our native tongue).

For example should the tenant have an issue with the boiler, I would like them to be able to call / email me and explain what is wrong (no hot water / no heating) and I would like to be able to ask them to please check the fuse box, to tell me if there are any flashing lights on the control panel etc. And also to easily coordinate when the plumber can come over to take a look.

There are other reasons why I would wish to keep communications with a tenant in writing (clarity of who agreed to do what and by when, etc).

If I were to approach a letting agent to help me find a tenant, would I be allowed to insist that the they find me a tenant with whom I can communicate in English?

To those who have understandably suggested a letting agent. We had a terrible experience with Savills, who charged 16% (!) and would call us regularly with reports of "the tenant says there is a door broken", but be unable to tell us how it was broken (lock? stiff? literally smashed?) which door we were talking about (cupboard? wardrobe? internal? external? front? rear?) so we would go round and round in circles with them calling the tenant and then relaying half-arsed and incoherent messages back to us.

Savills were at the higher end of the market, but we thought "you pay peanuts you get monkeys". Never again.

Now we like to communicate directly with our tenants and have our own team of tradesmen on standby for repairs and maintenance. Works well for us.

Well then accept the risk and cost of miscommunication. 16% isn’t high (I was paying 20% to Marsh and Parsons 10 years ago) you can’t have it all. An English tenant could be totally thick, lazy, sub let, etc etc

Caprisun I'm not looking for an English tenant, I'm looking for tenants who can speak English. They can be any race, religion or nationality my only requirements are that they pass the credit check, and are able to communicate with me.

I have currently tenants who do not speak English. It is a bit of a problem. The LA can’t communicate well with them and certain issues are a bit concerning. But I’m happy to have them as tenants so long as they abide by the rules that every tenant has to. I’m not discriminating against them, but he LA is finding communication hard.

It's a tricky one!

I know that. Really, change it to AN ENGLISH SPEAKING TENANT the point still remains

What you want are tenants who are functioning capable responsible people.... surely there are ways of ascertaining that in advance?

But you do understand now that making arbitrary rules that will disproportionately affect a protected group is not acceptable?

And if you'll communicate with a person with a disability by phone, why not another person with poor written abilities? Many people can speak a language but struggle to write it.

When the letting agent suggests a tenant to you just choose one you're happy with. No need to give your reasons to them. If it's someone you're not happy with just say you'd like to keep looking.

You could have problems with anyone. You could have someone totally lazy who doesn't bother reporting a gas leak. You could have someone who develops mh problems and can't find the energy to report a gas leak. You might find someone with no sense of smell who doesn't know there's a gas leak.

Saying you want someone who can only speak good English is discriminatory.

You would be better off getting an agency to manage this stuff if you are out of the country. It will work best in practical terms as they will have staff who are nearby and can go round and see what the problem is - and it will be their responsibility to ensure that communcation with the tenants is clear.

If you try to insist on people who speak good English you run the risk of a lot of aggravation for yourself. It might not be illegal, but do you want the local/national papers or some self-righteous bellends on social media painting you as Evil Racist Landlord?

I pay the LA 20% and that’s not London rates. Yes, I get phone calls about repairs and they aren’t particularly coherent from the LA. But that’s part of being a Landlord,

Well, you speak English but you still don't seem to be able to comprehend what people are telling you here: enforcing this about your tenants is unlawful discrimination.

Even if you don't put it in the contract, if you're rejecting tenants on the basis of language it is still unlawful discrimination.

The app sounds like a great idea, and one that would deliver the precision you didn't get form the previous agent. I don't see what your problem is with it.

And as you saw with the previous agent, a common language is no guarantee of flawless communication.

You are being discriminatory.

Well absolutely @Wordthe. That's why we like to meet them in person. You never know how a tenant will be in situ (you could let to a handyman who refuses to tighten the loo seat every now and then because that's "maintenance" and not his responsibility, after all he pays a lot of rent for the privilege of living there, etc etc etc). Always a risk you take.

I'm afraid I'm the wrong person to ask if you want someone impartial. My new upstairs neighbours are Romanian gypsies, who, for weeks now, have been causing absolute havoc and destruction. They shout at each other (I think there are 7 of them in a 2-bedroom flat) 24/7. I had to shout at them to keep it down at midnight last night - didn't work as they can't understand English. They fix cars in the middle of the parking lot and just leave bumpers etc lying about. They go through people's bins to see what they can find, leaving the rubbish lying around. My garden looks like an ashtray from the cig butts. Their DC bully all the other DC here. They wake my DC up every night by shouting in the passage outside my flat. They throw rubbish in the communal bins (including poo nappies) without putting anything in bin bags, stinking up the whole building.

And not one of them can speak a word of English. This is their second time living in that flat, and I cannot for the life of me understand why the LL let to them again.

So I'm afraid I'm with you on this one. I'm sitting here listening to them shout at each other and I wish they could speak English so I can tell them to shut the fuck up! sorry, in a major grump right now

You sound stingy and discriminatory. I would rather a Chinese engineer tenant who couldn’t speak very good English but who knew what the problem was with the boiler and could let the plumber in at any time to sort it rather than someone who speaks the queens English and is clueless about maintenance issues and who is never available to let people in or who is unreliable for example sleeps in and causes havoc in trying to arrange things.

She gave the particularly alarming example of a tenant who had reported a gas leak. An emergency gas engineer was called out and it transpired that actually the oven (which was electric) wasn't turning on, and on further investigation it was just a tripped fuse which needed replaced. Leading to two sets of call out fees (gas safe engineer + electrician)

To be fair, that could happen with a fluent English speaker...

For what it's worth I think you're totally reasonable to want a tenant you can communicate in English with. The likelihood is that most will be able to speak English anyway so you're probably worrying unnecessarily. This is business, and you're income. Don't do anything that you're not happy with.

I don’t really get your question OP. If you insist on meeting your tenants in person then you can obviously clearly identify at the meeting whether they communicate the way you want to. You obviously wouldn’t tell them you had rejected them for their language would you? So what’s the question?!

I still think you just need to offer a better class of property

Linguistic ability is NOT a protected characteristic, so it wouldn't be unlawful discrimination. Discrimination on the grounds of race, sexuality, disability, religion etc then yes, but not language barriers.

Honestly OP, you'll be renting out a house in England, it's highly unlikely that this will even be an issue. But if it's something that concerns you so much, then I'd agree with other posters in getting an agent to manage the tenancy.

You need to increase the rent - if you’re letting go Romanians who don’t speak any English id hazard a guess it’s very much the cheaper end of the market.

@Caprisunorange - I disagree with this. My upstairs neighbour charges an astronomical rent for the area, and basically lets it to anyone willing to pay that amount. It always ends up being a family of 7-14 Romanians or similar, who can't speak a word of English.

Why don't you just work with your handyman team so when a problem is raised, they go round there and confirm what needs doing, seeing as they'd likely be going anyway?

@Uniquack that sounds an awful situation, but the fact they are Romanian is completely and utterly besides the point. My most recent tenants are a Romanian accountant and her husband, who is a labourer. So far they have been wonderful tenants.

@Caprisunorange what makes you think the OP needs to offer a better class of property? Because people who can't speak English want to rent it?