Rent reform: GRTU demands safeguards for businesses

The GRTU has called for the setting up of an independent commission of experts including architects, lawyers and representatives of tenants of rented commercial properties and itself to conduct a detailed study and present proposals on a reform of commercial rents.

GRTU Director-General Vince Farrugia, speaking at a press conference this morning, reiterated the chamber’s call for commercial rents to be considered as a separate exercise from the current rent reform proposals.

He said proposals for a reform of commercial rents should, whilst safeguarding the security of tenure of licensed commercial enterprises, also ensure sustainable returns to property owners and the necessary fiscal incentives to encourage the evolution of the property rental market.

Turning to other aspects of the rent reform White Paper, Mr Farrugia said the government should continue to consider private owned properties as distinct from government owned properties and these two sectors should be treated as separate. The use of government property as a tool of assist enterprise, including preferential rental treatment, should continue within the framework of an agreed small business promotion strategy within the limits prescribed by state aid regulations.

He said the government should not make any distinction in its support to enterprise between properties rented to self-employed business and to enterprises registered as companies or civil partnerships when these properties were rented for licensed enterprise purposes.

Furthermore, any reform should not interfere with any contractual obligation reached between two parties or where the possibility for a contractual agreement existed even if none of the parties preferred to make use of it and where no law prohibited action that contracting parties could freely adopt.

"In the same way that employees, and wage earners are provided with legal protection against unfair dismissal, self-employed business owners whose livelihood, that of their families and of their employees depend on the enterprise operating from rented properties should continue to enjoy the safeguards that exist under current legislation ensuring that their livelihood will not depend on the whims of the property owner renting the enterprise property," Mr Farrugia said.