Much has been said about the old rent laws in Malta, and recently much has been written in the Times of Malta about the ever-increasing price rises of rental properties.
What is becoming stridently obvious in its omission is the plight of property owners who have the misfortune that their property falls under the old rent laws and are thus discriminated against in comparison to those who have the good fortune of being able to rent property under different legal conditions.
What does renting out property under the old rent laws involve? It means that the tenant is given protection by law to occupy a property and pay a pittance to the owner in relation to what the property could be worth on the market today. It means he or she can live or occupy the property for life.
The injustice is that the owners of such properties have become the unseen victims of a legal anomaly whereby the tenant is given full protection to occupy and live in a property.
There are cases where the original contract has long ended but the law permits temporary ground rent to become rent with a token increase, usually of a few euros, regardless of the owners’ wishes and intentions.
If the owners under the old rent laws ever get to see their property in their lifetime, they are more often than not returned in a state of gross neglect.
In some cases, illegal structures have been built by the tenant, subjugating the owners to Planning Authority fines if they choose to convert them, or other problems if they opt to sell.
In other cases, substantial damages are caused by the tenant, requiring hefty maintenance and repairs to the building which the tenants refuse to pay, leaving it to the owners to face the music when and if the property is returned.
The right to one’s property is an indelible tenet of democracy in Malta. It is time that these old rent laws are dismantled and updated. It is time that owners’ right to their property is recognised in a way that is congruent to contemporary rent laws.
A means test should be compulsory in order to provide sufficient and necessary information to establish whether or not tenants benefiting from old rent law properties are eligible for government-assisted housing or not. This would rule out those who benefit from living or setting up commercial enterprises and paying next to nothing in old rent properties owned by fellow citizens, when in many cases they themselves own properties which are rented out at market rates.
Everybody is speaking about the price spike in rental properties but what about those who for decades have silently endured receiving very low rent for their property with no end in sight?
Clearly, a case of “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” as said by Martin Luther King. Who else?