Rent Registration reform sees 30,000 lease agreements submitted in its first year

Over 30,000 lease agreements were submitted to the Housing Authority under the new rent regulations during 2020.

Within the first year of reform's implementation, 30,483 lease agreements were registered with the authority, of which 27,897 were long-let types.

The reform came into effect last year, with 2020 representing a transitory period whereby interested parties could register their contract with the authority. In 76.7% of the  cases, the contracts were registered by individual landlords.

An absolute majority of registered leases covered a one-year period, while 6,474 contracts covered a period of 2 years or more.

Over 4,500 registered contracts involved properties within the St Paul's Bay area, while Sliema and Msida properties commanded 2,783 and 2,321 contracts respectively.

The data collected also covers disputes and tenancy reports submitted to the authority - 172 tenancy reports were lodged, of which 109 are still under investigation, while 94 disputes were submitted between 8 May 2020 and 31 December 2020. From those disputes, 51 have since been decided, of which 41 were found to be in favour of the lessor.

Disputes were largely registered due to issues with water and electricity bills (20), rent deposits (26), repairs (2) and damages (18).

Terminated contracts - effects from the pandemic

During the COVID-19 partial lockdown, 4,278 contracts were terminated. Over 45% of these contracts were terminated without notice from the lessee, while nearly 26% were mutual terminations. 

Roughly 93% of terminated registered contracts belonged to foreign tenants, while 294 of the tenants were Maltese. 

To accompany this research, the Housing Authority will setting up a Residential Rental Observatory tasked with analysing all data pertaining to the rental market. This observatory will be set up in collaboration with the Central Bank of Malta.