Commercial rents injustice

I would like, for the umpteenth time, to highlight the unfair situation which our archaic rent laws are causing to owners of rented premises. I do not intend to go into the problems of rented houses used for domestic purposes, even though also here injustices are continually being perpetrated, but at least in these situations one can say they are fulfilling some social purpose.

But what about unjust problems related to commercial premises? What social functions are our rent laws fulfilling in these situations in this day and age, when everybody talks of liberalisation?

Most of the commercial premises involved were originally rented out decades ago and over the years ended up being inherited from one generation to the next but with no appropriate increase in rent.

The profits earned by the lessees have increased over the years while the income for the owners has remained the same. Is this fair, when the cost of living has increased at least 20 times since the 1950s? We have now reached the tragi-comic situation when the lessees of these premises in most cases are paying more in water and electricity meter charges than in actual rent, not to mention the trading licences.

Most of these premises are situated in prime locations and while adjacent newly set up commercial establishments are rent out at high rents the rents of "old" premises are stuck. Owners are thus being legally robbed of an adequate return on their properties.

Indeed, the owners of these properties are subsidising the businesses of the lessee. Their businesses flourish while the owners get a pittance in return.

To rub salt into the wound, for inheritance purposes these premises are then valued at the going market rates, and to further complicate matters, if these properties were to be then put on the market for sale the price they fetch would not be the realistic market price because they are occupied premises and even if they were offered for sale to the lessee he would expect to have it at a low price. The situation has recently been made worse by the new inheritance tax measures announced in the 2004 budget.

It is very unfair, in this day and age, for Parliament to perpetuate such an unjust and sad state of affairs. Thus I appeal to our MPs to get down to business and try to bring this injustice to an end by liberalising the rent laws, at least as far as commercial properties are concerned.

After all, if the rents of these properties are revised to realistic present-day levels, Goverment will also retrieve its share in taxes.