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RAK Rent Cap Hailed
RAS AL KHAIMAH - In a big relief to residents, Shaikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, has issued a law stipulating a ceiling on the increase in annual rents of both residential and commercial buildings in the emirate.
Law No. 14 for 2008, announced last week, stipulates that the landlords can increase the annual rents up to 15 per cent if the tenancy contracts were signed before January 2004 and up to 10 per cent if the contracts were signed between January 2004 and January 2008.
The law also restricts the increase in rent for tenancy contracts signed after January this year to 5 per cent.
The rent cap can be applied a year after the expiry of the tenancy contract.
Mubarak Ali Al Shamsi, Chairman of the Ras Al Khaimah Municipality, said the rent cap is applicable to all types of buildings, including residential and commercial.
“Only agricultural land, labour camp properties, temporarily rented areas like hotels and exhibition places and properties rented by free zones and ports are exempted from the new law,” he said.
According to the law, the standard tenancy contract period is for three years, or a time agreed between the lessee and lessor. In times of disagreement, the longer period will be recognised, said Al Shamsi.
Residents of Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) have hailed the rent cap, saying it will save them from the landlords and real estate dealers who have been hiking the rents exorbitantly.
Mahmood Abbas, an Egyptian expatriate residing in Khozam, said with this law, the landlords will have no chance to increase the rents arbitrarily as has been the case before.
“I shifted from a two-bed room apartment where I had stayed for more than four years when my landlord increased the rent by 70 per cent. I left the house and took a one-bedroom apartment on rent,” he said.
Anwar Shahid, an Indian expatriate residing in Kharran, said the rent cap is timely as most of the landlords and real estate dealers had been hiking the rents at will without giving any consideration about the existing rent values.
Another resident who took a shop on rent in Nakheel early this year said the real estate company increased the rent by 40 per cent when he went to renew the contract and asked him to vacate the shop if he could not pay up.
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