CAIRO - The newly proposed law regulating the landlord-tenant relationship has renewed fears among the landlords of ageing residential properties. These people, who have been appealing for more than three decades for an increase in the rents on their properties, corresponding with the soaring prices in the domestic market, complain that the new arrangement will be of no benefit to them. These landlords are victims of the socialist rules imposed by late president Gamal Abdel-Nasser, back in the 1950s. These landlords were allegedly done an injustice when they were banned from upping the rents on their properties. Because of this, the tenants (or their heirs) of a grand villa in the posh district of Zamalek, which they've been renting since Nasser fixed the rents nearly 60 years ago, might be paying only LE30 per month in rent. The irony is that, over the years, tenants in these old buildings have managed to build their own apartments and rent them out for far more than they are paying to their frustrated landlords, who can't even afford a kilo of beef from the money they get every month from one of their properties. Indeed, several years ago, one enterprising landlord asked his tenant to give him 2kg of beef every month, in lieu of rent. Wealthy property developers, who made vast sums of money under Hosni Mubarak, pressurised Parliament at the time into approving a new arrangement, whereby the rent on newly built flats would be increased every three years. The new contract is automatically revoked if the tenant refuses to comply with the increase. The fact that the disbanded ruling National Democratic Party constituted the majority in Parliament should explain why this new lease bill was so swiftly passed. The new lease contract did not escape harsh criticism, especially when thousands of newlyweds were evicted when they protested that the rent should go up every three years. Building experts, sympathetic towards these frustrated couples, insist that the rents should only be increased every five years, to make life easier for families. The Chairman of the Torah Municipal Council in southern Cairo, Engineer Ibrahim Saber, believes that the three-yearly 10 per cent increase in rent should be stopped, as it's unjust for many poor tenants. One housewife appealed to housing officials to only increase the rent by 10 per cent once every 10 years, because of the financial difficulties many families are suffering.
