The GRTU Chamber of Small Enterprises this morning called for the Rent Reform Bill to be fine-tuned during its consideration in the Parliamentary committee stage.
GRTU president Paul Abela and Director-General Vince Farrugia said the bill was undermining fundamental principles sanctioned by law. In particular, the GRTU was objecting to the right being given by the proposed bill for the government to interfere with private contracts established between landlords and tenants.
Legal representative Jean-Karl Farrugia said that should the bill be approved as presented, he feared it could be violating the Constitution.
He pointed out that one of the provisions of the Bill states that pre-1995 commercial contracts will see the rent increase by a fixed rate of 15% annually until 2012. Dr Farrugia said this was an unacceptable blanket approach because commercial properties had different value, and, more importantly, this interfered with existing contracts.
He said the GRTU was also strongly objecting to a clause of the bill which said that: "A commercial contract made before June 1,1995 shall, in any case, terminate within 20 years from June 1, 2008." The legislator, he said, was intervening between the contractual obligations reached between tenants and landlords. The legislator was being put in a privileged position to break what was up to today considered as an unbreakable contract.
He said that among the other areas which the GRTU wanted to see improved was the section on the inheritence of leases when the commercial tenant passed away. The current provisions, he said, were too narrow. "The principle of successionof businesses in rented properties should be recognised and memmbers of the fmaily of the tenants or other nominated by the tenants as successors should be given the necessary safeguards so that the enterprise willc ontinue to survive," Dr Farrugia said.
“This bill is not good enough and the GRTU is giving its technical input at the committee stage for it to be fine-tuned. A lot of work has gone into the aspect of residences but not enough attention has been given to comercial rents," Mr Vince Farrugia said.