MALTA TENANT SUPPORT
  • Home
  • About
  • Rental Contracts
  • A chronology
  • Blog

Essential information on the post 2020 rental contract

6/4/2021

3 Comments

 
The  Residential Leases Act came into force on January 1st, 2020.  I will be  writing a series of information blogs which will hopefully help you become more aware of your rights and responsibilities under the new rent law. 

​This first blog in the series will include details of how to  make sure that your rental contract is  compliant with the Residential Leases Act.  Every rental contract must contain the seven essential requirements listed below in order for the registration process of the contract with the Housing Authority to be conducted as smoothly and efficiently as possible.  
Picture
Picture
 If the contract does not contain one or more of the above seven essential requirements, then it will not be possible to register the contract with the Housing Authority and the contract will be null and void.  ​ Please note in particular the inventory, which is often forgotten. 

Also please remember to get your landlord to sign Arms Form N - Verification of Pending Dues.  This will zero the Arms bill so that you will not pay for the bills of previous occupants of the rental property.  Please click on the link below for a copy of Arms Form N:  
n-_authorisation_of_verification_of_pending_dues.pdf
File Size: 111 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Finally please remember to ask your landlord to sign Arms Form H - Change in the number of persons declaration.  Your landlord will complete Section A of this form; all the occupants of the rental property will complete Section B.  Landlord and occupants will have to also provide copies of photo identification.  This will make sure that you are on the correct residential utility tariff for people living in their primary residence.  The default tariff is the second home tariff which is extortionate, especially for water.  The only way to be on the correct utility tariff for people living in their primary residence is via Arms Form H.  Please click on the link below to download this form:   
h_-change_in_number_of_persons_declaration_31072015__1_.pdf
File Size: 1182 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

For a standard rental contract taken from the very useful and official Housing Authority rental website, please click on the link below:   ​
long-private-residential-leases.pdf
File Size: 170 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Picture
The landlord must register the contract with the Housing Authority within ten days of the commencement of the lease.   If the lease is registered after ten days then there will be an additional fee. If the landlord fails to register the contract within the ten days, then the tenant can register the rental contract at the expense of the landlord.  ​
Picture
It is in both your interests and the interests of the landlord to make sure that the contract is registered.  If it is not registered, neither party will be able to access the protection provided by the Residential Leases Act or the Maltese Civil Code.  Moreover, neither party will be able to submit a dispute. The facility of submitting an online dispute costs 10 euro and a decision will be made by the Dispute Panel within 5 working days of last submissions.  There are many clauses in the new rent law which protect the tenant from various problems to do with renting, for example, the overpayment on their consumption of water and electricity and the unjustified retention of their deposit.  I will be looking at these in more detail in other blogs.  This means that a tenant will definitely win a dispute if, for example, they are on the incorrect Arms tariff for people living in their primary residence.  

If the landlord refuses to register the contract and the tenant cannot register it because it is missing one of the seven essential requirements, then there is the option of reporting the tenancy.  This will  mean  fines / prosecution in a criminal and / or civil court of law for the landlord plus the Housing Authority fixing the rent for the tenant at below market rent rates. Th
e Housing Authority will first have to establish that the tenant is indeed living in the rental property.  

One final note.  Please do not be surprised if your rental contract contains clauses which are forbidden clauses, listed under Article 7 of the Residential Leases Act.  The Housing Authority has limited resources.  It registered circa 30 000 rental contracts in the first year of the Residential Leases Act, and therefore is unable to check the minute detail of every clause of every contract.  These clauses will hopefully die a natural death as more and more letting agents / landlords / tenants learn more about the intricacies of the 2020 Residential Leases Act. Rest assured, however, that these clauses are completely without effect.  Therefore you can ignore them completely and with no ill effect.  Also, please rest assured that the Residential Leases Act and the Maltese Civil Code trump any clause in any rental contract, no matter what any letting agent or landlord may tell you.  
Picture
Picture
3 Comments
Bill Wood
7/4/2021 09:05:48 am

Could there be included a condition that the letting agent / company take some responsibility towards discrepancies in the contract. It seems to me that they take no responsibility whatsoever and are paid a handsome fee by both lessor and lessee

Reply
Johanna MacRae
7/4/2021 09:40:54 am

It is my understanding that we will have the professionalisation of the letting agent at some unspecified time in the future. It's a huge pity that letting agents do not think to familiarize themselves with such a bread and butter aspect of their job. I suspect that there will be a Darwinian separation of chaff from wheat eventually.

Reply
Carmen Smith
16/2/2022 09:28:32 am

Did I interpret correctly that the condominium fees are to be paid by the landlord, and not by the tenant? We’ve been paying 250€ annually for these past 6 years. Please let me know, since we are due now to pay this year’s fee. Thank you very much.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Johanna MacRae

    Archives

    April 2021
    July 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.