Recent remarks by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi about the need to reconsider the value of property rents nationwide are fuelling this age-old debate.
Speaking to a large audience of government officials, media and members of parliament during the opening of a number of housing projects in Badr City early this week, the president said some flats at the centre of the Egyptian capital are worth millions of pounds.
Nevertheless, he said, some of the tenants of those properties are paying as little as LE20 ($1.25) in rent.
Meanwhile, millions of landlords cannot derive a living from their properties because of the forty-year-old Law 136/1981, which makes no provision for rent adjustment. Consequently, rents have been at the same level for decades and landlords are reduced to living on a pittance.
Some flats and shops in the nation’s most up-market areas bring in only a few pounds in rent, which is seriously inversely proportional to their real value, which can run into millions.
Landlords are now lobbying for an amendment to the law allowing them to turn their properties into reasonable sources of income.
Landlord Mohamed Mahmoud succinctly described the issue as a matter of ‘life and death’.
“Keep up with inflation? Keep abreast of the cost of living? Forget it. Not with the few quid I get in so-called rent every month,” he lamented.
Proposals for amendments to Law 136/1981 have been gathering dust in office drawers at the House of Deputies for years.
President Sisi’s remarks could well reverse that state of affairs. MP Abdel Wahab Khalil of the parliamentary Housing Committee said his committee is to meet to discuss the matter soon.
“The president’s remarks about rents were timely indeed,” Khalil said. “They aim to make the tenant-landlord relationship fairer.”
The objective is a mechanism to increase rents in line with the cost of living and property values.
According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics, around 8 million apartments and business premises are regulated by Law 136/1981.
Meanwhile, millions of tenants feel that the sword of Damocles will soon fall.
Tenant Hoda al-Bagouri said, “We paid our lives savings to rent these properties and remained committed to the payment of the rents over the years.”
She expressed fears that she may be evicted from her flat if she cannot pay her way.
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