Leftist parties, tenants call on Sisi to block old rent law

Leftist parties and tenant groups have launched a petition to call on President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to block the new old rent law, legislation that is set to overhaul decades-old rent control arrangements which currently keep housing costs extremely low for over 1.6 million families and millions of commercial tenants.

The new law was approved by the House of Representatives earlier this month despite widespread popular anger and proposed amendments submitted by opposition MPs. Now, it awaits the president’s decision: either to ratify it, or return it to the House for further amendment.

Complicating the situation is a Supreme Constitutional Court ruling which says that rent control regulations must end with the outgoing Parliament — whose term came to an end this week. If Parliament had failed to introduce transitional legislation, rent protections would have been dissolved under the ruling anyway, leaving tenants in a legal limbo, vulnerable to arbitrary evictions or rent increases.

The court recommended that MPs introduce alternative legislation to ease the transition out of the old rent system and the House managed to pass a bill to that effect in its final session, though not without 20 MPs staging a walkout.

The law’s implementation awaits presidential ratification to come into effect. Unless the president decides to block the law, it will automatically take effect by August 1.

The tenants’ petition, launched on Wednesday at an event hosted by the Popular Front for Social Justice coalition of Left-leaning parties and held the Socialist Popular Alliance Party’s headquarters, demands that Sisi return the law to the House instead of ratifying it, even if that requires Sisi to summon the outgoing representatives to return to session before the upcoming general election.

They listed major objections to the law, citing clauses that could see tenants lose their contracts entirely under Article 2, “although the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled only to increase rents,” the petition reads.

They also object to the market-based rate of rent increases stipulated in Article 3, arguing that increases should take into account any renovations done at the tenant’s expense, advance payments and building construction dates — since old rent tenants from the 1980s and 1990s already pay higher rates.

They also objected to Article 7, which introduces new grounds for eviction not stipulated in previous laws. This portion of the legislation allows landlords to get immediate eviction orders from an urgent matters judge, while tenants are only allowed to appeal before regular courts — which will not halt the eviction order. The effect is to “completely undermine the tenant’s right to litigation,” as per the petition, with speakers at Wednesday’s conference from the Socialist Popular Alliance, Bread and Freedom, Tagammu and Egyptian Democratic Front parties stressing constitutional protections on the right to pursue court action.

Article 7 also includes a provision that allows eviction if tenants are proven to own another property, which speakers at the conference said is in violation of constitutional protections to private property.