Most landlords are good people. They are businessmen and businesswomen from all sorts of cultural, academic, and social backgrounds and upbringing. It's in a good landlord's best interest to keep his or her tenants happy and satisfied of both their living conditions and their landlord and property management. Good landlords know that conscientious stewardship of their investment real estate properties means attracting and keep the best and most responsible good tenants.
Many laws are put in place to protect and clearly define the landlord/tenant relationship in a manner that does not give one side a distinct or unfair advantage over the other. That is, in theory at least. Unfortunately, in practical terms, I've seen jurisdictions that heavily favour tenants in some parts of the country while in others they favour landlords. However, the goal in any civil government is to try and work towards fairness and equity in landlord and tenant relations.
Often landlords feel that the most control they have over the landlord/tenant process is right at the beginning. Before a prospective tenant becomes an official tenant, a landlord wants to avoid accidentally renting their property to a deadbeat or professional tenant (in the negative sense). It's the same motivation that drives a good tenant to ensure that their landlord is not an absentee slumlord or an unreasonable control freak. In a landlord's attempt to do a thorough assessment, oftentimes they may ask questions or require information to make their decision on your tenancy that is not legal to ask. The extent of this varies from country to country and jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
In Canada for example, the Section 1 provision of the Canadian Human Rights Code spells out exactly what's expected of all citizens and residents:
Every person has a right to equal treatment with respect to the occupancy of accommodation, without discrimination because of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, age, marital status, family status, handicap, or the receipt of public assistance.
Basically, this means that a landlord cannot ask illegal questions that contravene this declaration and/or make it a condition of renting a premises. Infringing on these rights is extremely serious and could be subject to financial and legal consequences for a landlord. In most cases, landlords do not realize that some of their preemptive actions aren't legal. Unfortunately, ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law. On that note, there is no reason tenants should be ignorant either.
It should be noted that in Canada, there are also questions that a landlord CAN ask which may be uncomfortable for you but necessary for the landlord. Remember, a landlord is trying to verify that you will be able to continue to make rental payments in a timely manner, take care of the rented premises, and not be a disturbance or nuisance to others (neighbours or other tenants). Part of this process will involve an application from the landlord usually but also a lot of questions about your income. You will need to share details about your income, bank, loans, savings, personal references, former landlord info, employers, credit checks, etc. Of course you don't have to provide this information - but you likely won't be able to rent the unit without making your financial past and present an open book.
Going back to questions a landlord cannot ask, here's some good ones:
