What is happening with rent could turn out to be an enormous threat. The courts had never touched the rent controls on ‘pre-95’ households. However, in May, property owners won a ‘bombshell’ case that declared the relevant laws to be unconstitutional, because the gap between the rent allowed by government and the rent for the same house on the free market was so large that the rent controls denied the landlords’ human right to enjoy their property. 

So, now we can expect a queue of court cases where owners win big against the rent laws. Does this mean that the 32,000 households with such controlled rents will suddenly lose this protection?

Long-suffering landlords see good news in such decisions by the courts. But what tenants got from the 2018 rents White Paper was not good news. The worst news was the White Paper’s recommendation that rents were not to be protected through any control and at any contract renewal. The only control it suggested was on the rate of rent rise during the contract’s duration. These rises would be pegged with the prevailing market rent rises, but would be free to rise uncontrolled upon signing a new contract. 

Tenants also have every reason to be worried about contract duration. 

Official discussion seems to have been taking it for granted that contracts could typically last for three years, maybe seven at most. So, from now on, families will have to prepare to uproot themselves from neighbourhoods at distressingly frequent dates.

This contrasts with what happens in Germany where families know that every lease is normally long-term, usually indefinite. 

More strikingly, it contrasts with what has just happened in Britain. 

The conservative government, in order to reduce family hardship, has decided to protect the right of tenants to renew their contract lease, making it more difficult for the landlord to object. Do we want to be more right-wing than the British Conservatives? Can we blame the European court when we know that it does not object to rent controls as such?

It often seems that courts only look at one side of the problem. 

Court decisions have said that the sky-rocketing of rents creates a human rights problem for the landlord. If the landlord received much less rent than what the open market allows, that is a breach of his/her human rights. Yet, we have never had a court decision that says that doubling or tripling rent overnight, resulting in a family transferring to a garage or the street, is a breach of the tenant’s human rights. 

This is the case even though the first article of the Constitution declares that Malta is a republic founded on work, which should make it unconstitutional for a worker’s earnings to be wiped out by an owner’s summary decision to charge unjustified rent.

To be fair,  Maltese and European courts do allow below-market rent controls, but only ‘as long as they do not go too far’ in deciding the cases submitted to them.

The 2018 White Paper appeared to focus on the 7,000 households paying commercial rents. Now the question arises as to what will happen to the 32,000 households enjoying protected rents. What will happen? 

Mass evictions and a mass exodus of families from the hearts of our communities to council-house type ghettos? 

Does this mean that the households with controlled rents will suddenly lose protection?

Will short rents prevail, making decent rent only a short-lived consolation?

Much, in fact, could go wrong, and cause a perfect storm. Political parties could link too closely to powerful developers, owners and would-be employers of house-hungry immigrants, while fobbing off tenants by blaming the European court. Legislators and the Attorney General’s office could fail to create an effective defence of tenants’ rights. 

Owners could grossly abuse market freedom. Tenants’ voices could remain weak, unassisted by sympathetic legal experts and leaders, and their rights below the radar of the courts. Alternative housing, built with the earmarked €100 million, might even be built hurriedly and shoddily.

The worst that can happen is if we all – populace and courts, politicians and lawyers, for-profit lobbies and journalists – fail to see that this can be an absolute game changer. 

It is one thing for the government to be made to pay up a few thousands to compensate one aggrieved owner. It is another if the government is obliged to do the same thing all at once for all 32,000 controlled houses. 

Letting one locust fly free is one thing. It is another to look on while the sky is filled with a swarm of these blessed creatures! If it is ‘proportionate’ to expect government to bail out one owner, the same cannot be said if what is expected is for government to pay up out of proportion with its means. The same legal and justice logic simply does not apply.  

But good scenarios can happen, too. And they will happen if we agree to promote them. Tenants and common people can find voice and defenders, as well as lawyers and MPs, to take up their case. The for-profit lobby can decide to bear its social responsibility and cooperate with an arrangement that protects affordable rents and a family-friendly duration of contracts through a combination of goodwill, negotiation and conformity to justice and rules. 

The government must ward off the spectre of mass evictions and the spread of household moves by protecting continued home ownership, negotiating and enforcing effective family protection, and being ready to use reserve powers if dangers warrant it. 

Probably the best news in the White Paper is the proposal that government subsidises all those who cannot afford risen rents. Yes, it is about time landlords get a fairer deal. But it is essential that controlled rents will now be pegged at a level which the government can afford to subsidise, for tenants who cannot afford them, while retaining enough protection to avoid any more hardship than is necessary in a society with social responsibility.

Dr Pace is a specialist in social policy.