Good grief. That would have been my thought too, but if this has to be addressed via legislation because it is NOT so would be disturbing to me!
WTF? The simple act of translating can change a meaning in a variety of ways. Of COURSE you are correct in your post. If you AREN’T, I find that very disconcerting.
It’s not SO obvious that it shouldn’t need legislation. The way I understand it, there is a legal principle that the person who draws up a contract is responsible for any contradiction in the contract. So if I say, “the repair must be done within five business days” AND “the repair must be done within five days” in the same contract, the repair must be done within five days.
Also, if I’m a landlord, and I make two contracts, the one which is more favorable to the renter probably will be the controlling one. (Again, I’m not a lawyer, and state laws probably vary.) If I sign the English one first, and THEN sign one more favorable to the renter, the second contract supercedes the first. If the first one is more favorable to the renter, I have to demonstrate that the renter received a benefit in signing a second contract or else the second contract is null.
The REAL mess comes from U.S. English, which is a money-making scam. They passed lots of official-English laws which do nothing but simply state that “English is the official language of...” a given state. What does that MEAN? Does it mean anything more than honoring the language, like saying that “My Old Kentucky Home” is (was) the official song of Kentucky? Or does it give preference to English when conducting official business?
What if the tenant brought a translator and the translation is the tenant’s own? Does that mean the tenant is responsible for contradictions?