Rent reform: A landlord's personal experience

First of all I would like to thank the Ministry for Social Policy for the effort being made in setting down the rent law reforms. By all means, it must be appreciated that the reform per se will not be an easy task as it will entail having justice prevail over a multitude of intricate situations. It is hoped that the consultation process underway will shed light on how to come up with fair solutions for all.

The following is an account of how the old rent law is negatively affecting me personally, and how the proposed reforms will not be providing a fair solution to my problem.

Ten years ago my family inherited a house in Qormi. In the 1970s, part of the main entrance to the house was rented out for commercial use. To this day, the old rent law obliges my family to rent the room at €1.16 per day, whereas its market value today stands at €16.30 daily. Needless to say, due to the old law, my family cannot even claim the room back. Funnily enough, since the room in question would increase the value of the property, I have also gone as far as offering €16,300 to get it back, however, to no avail.

One might ask, what will the rent law reform bring to this deplorable situation? According to the freephone customer service, the room can be rented at an extra €1.35 per day, plus a small percentage on the profits declared by the tenant. Moreover, I was told the room can only be claimed back after the passage of 10 years.

Bearing all this in mind:

1) If the current market value of the room is €16.30 a day, why are not we entitled to receive something close to this amount of money? Instead, we will only be given €2.51, plus a percentage of the profit declared by the tenant. In my view this is not straightforward at all. After all, who will guarantee that the tenant is declaring all of his income? What's more, this shop does not open on a daily basis, hence we do not stand a good chance of getting a fair deal.

2) Why should we wait for another 10 years to get the room back? The tenant in question is far from being on the poverty line. Therefore, if the implementation of the current reform will take a relatively long time in order to protect those who live in difficult circumstances, this is really not the case.

While the tenant is taking full advantage of the old rent law, my family is stuck (earning a ludicrous amount of money) for another 10 years before selling the house at a reasonable price. As stated earlier, the price of the house will be highly effected by this room.

In conclusion, I would like to make the following suggestion. I recall the time when benchmarks had been introduced for self-employed taxpayers, whereby the minimum income for the self-employed was set. By the same token, benchmarks could be established for tenants (who had rented premises for commercial use under the pre-95 rent law) so that they pay a price which by and large reflects the market value. Means tests could also be utilised to determine if the tenant can afford such prices or not.