Sign up: It's now or never

There is nobody in his or her right mind who can argue against a reform of the rent laws. Nobody can ask the owners of controlled rent properties to continue to suffer the blatant injustice the rent laws inflict upon them.

In the coming weeks we will have tenants finding their voices and expressing their concerns about the future. This is understandable. Not even they can argue that perpetuating the status quo can be justified in any way. Their concerns must be addressed. Many fear eviction in their old age or a raise in the rent beyond what they can afford. There are a myriad situations that deserve specific treatment and the sooner we begin to address them the better. Some people need help and they should get it.

What is beyond doubt is that the owners of controlled rent properties cannot be asked to carry the burden any longer. If there is a social burden to be carried, it should be borne by us all together. If the very many different situations present a series of thorny problems to be addressed, this is no good reason to continue to ignore the injustice.

So far the criticism to the Green party's referendum bid have been very, very odd indeed. Malcolm Mifsud expended a page in The Sunday Times to agree with us on every single item and then described our effort as a gimmick.

Housing Authority chairman Marisa Micallef called me dishonest. Perhaps I should sue her for libel to raise funds for the referendum campaign. She has continued to argue that removal of the rent laws on its own will not produce the free rental market to which we aspire. Is that a good reason to leave owners effectively expropriated for ever and ever? Perhaps she is afraid that the failure of successive administrations to address the social housing issue, compounded by the government's current lack of funds, would be catastrophic. Only if the government sits on its hands.

The question is whether we can agree that it would be beneficial to create a functioning rental market in the property sector. I doubt that anybody could say no to that, not even Ms Micallef. If so then the debate becomes more a matter of choosing the most appropriate means for doing so.

Whether or not the removal of the rent laws on its own will do the trick remains to be seen. What is definitely beyond doubt is that the removal of the rent laws is a sine qua non for the creation of any such market. There must be an even playing field, a complete offer, the widest choice possible. The consumer, the tenant, must be king and suppliers, the landlords, in the most complete competition possible. Right now the tenants in controlled rent properties are despots while all others are at the mercy of a restricted market dominated by the effect of rent to holiday makers. All properties should be candidates for use as homes/business premises for owners or as a source of income for private or business tenants. It is the only rational use of resources one can defend. Maintaining a 25 per cent vacancy rate is simply absurd.

The failure of the 1995 partial liberalisation of the rent laws is constantly quoted in support of the prophesied failure of the rent referendum to produce the desired effect. It was a miserable half-hearted, electorally driven fiasco. It did not even have the guts to end the shameful institute of the inheritance of leases. It was a something-is-better-than-nothing carrot which left everyone dissatisfied. In effect it was a Nationalist government's effort to appear to do something without upsetting anybody.

One cannot hope to change a culture by half-measures. The owners of properties which by some stroke of luck return to their owners' possession are unlikely to take any risk at all by renting them out as long as the controlled rent regime survives side-by-side with the sickly sprout of a liberalised rental market. They continue to hear horror stories of judgments made yesterday and today confirming the effective expropriation of rented properties.

They are shrewd enough to know that the government's paralysis is producing a situation of artificial scarcity constantly widening the swathe of those unable to afford to buy property. They know the government does not have the resources to face the problem it is creating by doing nothing at all. They have every reason to suspect that we are slipping inexorably to a situation where the government will be forced to return to the madness and inhumanity of requisition.

The nettle must be plucked, without further dithering, before it is too late.

We could have abolished the inheritance of leases years ago. It could be done today with a snap of the majority's fingers. It still would take more than one generation to free up most properties. It would still be unbearably unfair. It would still leave a millstone around the neck of anyone attempting to bring about a culture change. Much more is needed.

Today owners of controlled properties are offering homes to their tenants for peanuts and being refused.

There are many thousands of dog-in-the manger tenants which no government has the guts to take on. Many of them occupy prime business premises. Many of them would be willing to accept reality if the law changed. They have had a holiday from competition decades long. They too are shrewd and have always known that it cannot last forever. Those who can easily afford decent rents are merely snapping up a "business opportunity" at present.

It would be very interesting to have facts and figures, names and addresses together with the rents paid. The Green party already has sheaves of them: photocopies of rent receipts which present a harrowing picture. We want more of them. When the time comes it may be necessary to have a shame and blame campaign to describe in detail what the apologists for the status quo are defending.

The idea that the situation cannot be improved, that we cannot create a fair and free market that serves all parties is simply preposterous. Removing the artificial dam of the rent laws will allow everything to find its natural level. Doing nothing will certainly extend the unbearable.

If the removal of controls which have produced the extinction of the rental market does not work on its own or within a short time, it is possible to produce the desired change. It is possible in many ways: sticks and carrots. I would go for the carrots first, cartloads of them. It is impossible to compensate owners of controlled properties enough. How about a minimal rate of income tax on all rental income? No tax for 10 years on rental income from formerly controlled rent properties? Full VAT refund on all repair costs? How about a funding scheme for restoration? Why don't we start devising schemes and costing them at once rather than resisting what is universally acknowledged to be a good idea?

While the government ponders its own paralysis, people are on the move. They know that it is now or never. We are being deluged by demands for a referendum petition. We are on the move at last and a change for the better will certainly take place.

Dr Vassallo is chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika - the Green party.

hcvassallo@kemmunet.net.mt