Shop rents cannot be increased for a year

Shop owners cannot increase the rent for a year as the government has extended the validity of tenancy contracts of all kinds of shops until mid-February next year.

The shops include all independent ones as well as those in the various malls and other types of commercial complexes.

The decision to freeze shop rents for a year, until the middle of February 2017, has been taken to check rent increases in view of a severe shortage of shops.

The Cabinet yesterday approved its own Draft Decision to extend the validity for a year of leases of premises or parts of premises for non-residential purposes. The Cabinet gave the approval at its routine weekly meeting yesterday, reports QNA.

The Draft Decision pertains only to shop rents and excludes office space, clarified prominent lawyer, Yusuf Al Zaman. He added that the Draft Decision approved by the Cabinet yesterday covers only shop rents as they have literally been soaring.

The rent law was enforced in February 2008 (Law No. 4 of 2008) and a Cabinet decision later allowed the owners of shops to increase rent annually by a fixed percentage based on slabs.

As the validity of the Cabinet decision expires by the middle of next month, the Advisory Council took up the issue of rising shop rents and made recommendations that the rents should be frozen.

A key panel of the council studied the rent situation and noted that there was the need to check the rent rise, especially of shops.

QNA said the Cabinet’s draft decision to freeze shop rents applies only to those rent/lease contracts whose validity expires next month.

These contracts will automatically have their validity extended for a year. 

Leases for longer periods are excluded from the draft decision. [The Peninsula]