MPs baulk at prospect of ‘social unrest’ as plan to end rent control for millions sparks anger

A new government proposal to phase out Egypt’s outdated rent control laws sparked heated debate inside the House of Representatives and beyond last week.

Several million renters, many of whom are civil service pensioners living in upscale neighborhoods of Cairo and Giza, fear that the legislation will push them out of their homes and into peripheral areas of the capital.

For lawmakers in the House, who are convening a “social dialogue” on the law this week, the prospect of mass evictions loomed large among concerns they voiced during sessions last week — attended by a Mada Masr correspondent — that the changes could become the lasting legacy of their five-year term in Parliament, which is set to end in June.

What is old rent and why is it going to change? 

“Old rent” describes a constellation of legal parameters laid out in several separate rent control laws issued between 1940 and 1985. On the whole, they act to protect two principles: restricting landlords from hiking rental rates and automatically extending lease contracts across generations.

The changes provide a pathway forward to alter a set of laws that have kept rental rates extremely low for a few million tenants since the 1960s, allowing some people to retain homes in high-demand neighborhoods despite soaring inflation or to hold on to leases across generations within the same family.

Aside from the simmering anger of landlords, who resent the legal cap on the profits they could reap from old rental properties if they were leased at current market rates, the old rent laws are also the bedrock on which various other urban issues rest. The properties have become notorious for being left in deteriorating or dangerous condition, with renters housed in apartments where landlords are unable or unwilling to conduct maintenance.

In other cases, landlords keep inner city real estate covered by the law empty or uninhabited for decades rather than leasing it for negligible income.

Over 1.6 million families live in homes under the old rent law, according to the Built Environment Observatory (BEO), which cites data from the 2017 census issued by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).

All that is set to change, however, since a 2024 ruling by the Constitutional Court found that rent control represents a violation by the state of private contracts, which should be regulated by civil law alone. The court mandated that steps be taken to move away from the old rent system.

The government has proposed phasing in the changes to avoid a legal vacuum following the court’s cancellation of old rent regulations. But the proposal has raised major concerns among some of the several million affected renters — many of whom have invested in maintaining buildings their families have lived in for decades.

Tenants and opposition parties gathered last week to draft a response and list of demands, though lawyer Ayman Essam told Mada Masr that no members of the Renters Association, an organization that has been working for over 10 years to advance the rights of tenants, have been invited to the “social dialogue” taking place in the House this week.

Participants in last week’s House sessions were also largely preoccupied with the political stakes for Parliament itself — with just one month left to resolve the hot-button issue affecting millions and likely to trigger “social unrest,” as media pundit and MP Mostafa Bakry put it.

Below, we walk through the changes proposed in the government’s draft law, along with some of the key concerns flagged by participants in the ongoing debate. 

Rental rates to increase by 20 times across affected properties

One of the main provisions of the draft law is to increase rental rates.

Attending a session at the House on Tuesday last week, the chair of the government statistics agency CAPMAS, Khairat Barakat, said that around 36 percent of the affected households pay monthly rental rates of only LE50, with some paying less than LE2.

Around 327,000 old rent housing units, or 20 percent of the total, are priced at LE50-100 Egyptian pounds, while around 1,942, or around two percent, pay LE900, according to Khairat.

In comparison, in non-rent controlled apartments, the median rental rate per household in 2017 was LE1,200, according to the BEO. The Egyptian pound has depreciated by over 60 percent against the dollar since then, inflating rental rates city wide rapidly.

Part of what the new bill would provide is a phased hike to these rates. Article 2 would set legal rent for the affected residential units at 20 times the current rate, with units in urban areas to be priced at a minimum of LE1,000 per month and in villages at LE500 per month.

Essam, the lawyer who has been representing the Renters Association for 12 years, said that while raising rents is required under the Constitutional Court’s ruling, there is no need for it to be hiked at such major increments and that Parliament should do more to protect families. “Someone who pays LE400 should pay LE8,000?,” he told Mada Masr with consternation, continuing, “The draft law is flawed from every angle.”

MP Doha Assy likewise warned during last week’s Parliament sessions that applying an immediate twentyfold rent increase could lead to rents reaching LE8,000 in some cases, which could represent a genuine crisis.

Other MPs argued that a twentyfold hike across the board would overlook key differences in property types and neighborhoods. Article 2 is too broad in its reference to “all residential units,” said MP and former State Council Deputy President Monsef Naguib.

“It would treat those renting in [upscale] areas like Garden City and Zamalek the same as renters who warrant different treatment, such as those in rooftop rooms,” Naguib argued, referring to the comparatively basic homes constructed on building rooftops across the capital. “I fear these marginalized people could end up on the street,” he said.

Bakry also questioned the universal logic of the changes proposed in Article 2. “On what grounds were these figures determined? The article violates the principle of equality — it makes no distinction between someone living in Shubra and someone in Heliopolis.”

Five years before time’s up

After the twentyfold increase, rental rates would be hiked 15 percent per year for the coming five years, as per Article 4 of the government-submitted draft law, which the Constitutional Court mandates must pass a law on old rent before its term ends.

After the five-year period, all legal rent protection would expire under Article 5 of the draft law, leaving tenants at the mercy of whatever rates landlords choose to set or vulnerable to eviction under Article 6.

Under Article 7, tenants whose contracts were terminated under the new law would be given priority access to alternative housing offered by the state, whether through new rental agreements or homeownership.

These articles prompted some of the most heated debate in Parliament last week. Head of the Housing Committee Ahmed al-Siginy was among those who flagged concern about the potential of mass evictions, asking, “Has any study been conducted to assess the social consequences?”

Civil Law Professor Mohamed Saad Khalifa from Assiut University, who was invited to speak to the Housing Committee regarding the legal implications of the law, likewise commented on the five-year expiration date. "We're talking about tenants who have established a residence in this place. When I say he'll leave after three or five years, the poor resident who owns nothing will either be homeless or the state will honor him and provide him with shelter.” Both eventualities, Khalifa said, would set a difficult precedent.

Housing Minister Sherif al-Sherbiny, who attended sessions in the House last week, assured lawmakers that no citizen would be left without shelter if the rental relationship was deregulated as envisioned by the government’s proposal.

He said Article 5 would be subject to further dialogue and pledged that deregulation would not proceed without alternative housing being offered to affected tenants first.

Landlords who presented their concerns to MPs at the House on Sunday were concerned that five years was too long, and wanted to be able to increase rental rates more rapidly, or to higher thresholds in popular or upscale neighborhoods.

A ‘fireball’ tossed into Parliament’s lap

Among some of the most forceful objections voiced among parliamentarians during their review of the law in last week’s sessions were those concerning the MP’s responsibility to handle the law.

The Constitutional Court’s ruling mandates that the old rent laws expire at the end of the current Parliament’s five-year term in June, meaning that if the House has not passed a law to phase out the rent control, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mahmoud Fawzy explained during a House session, a legal “vacuum” with serious legal implications would ensue.

“The ruling would then come into effect, leading to the automatic annulment of rental contracts — each through individual legal action,” the minister explained.

Several lawmakers voiced exasperation at the fact that the government saddled them with the draft only a few weeks before their term ends.

MP Mostafa Bakry described the draft law as a “fireball thrown into the parliament’s lap.” Eviction or conflict between renters and landlords “would amount to igniting social unrest,” he said. “You're playing with us. This government is overbearing toward the Egyptian people with a law that could ignite chaos in the country. We will not allow anything but a balanced law.”

“If we don’t approach this discussion carefully, this law could be the graveyard of the 2025 Parliament,” MP Mohamed Abdel Alim Dawoud said, echoing a similar sentiment. “This draft law delivers clear injustice to landlords and a bleak future for tenants.”

“The government handed us a disaster,” MP Abdel Moneim Emam said, echoing MP Ahmed Farghaly’s comment that by submitting the bill in this form, “the government has set the public against Parliament.”

Various other MPs, including Suleiman Wahdan, Freddy al-Bayady and Mervat al-Eksan, called for the postponement of the new law until new data is collected.

Lawmakers’ anger was met with a promise that the law could be heavily revised before being issued.

Deputy chair of the House Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee and member of the majority-holding Nation’s Future Party Ehab al-Tamawy announced the party’s call for a reassessment of the law.

Tamawy mentioned the potential for widespread public discontent and stressed the need to review key aspects of the government’s proposal, particularly the provisions concerning rent increases, pointing to the widespread public discontent.

Speaking to Mada Masr at the end of last week, head of the House Housing Committee and member of the Egyptian Freedom Party Mohamed al-Fayoumy said the government has left the door open for the House to introduce all possible amendments "without caveats or red lines."

Renters sidelined? 

The House is continuing to convene meetings on the law as part of a social dialogue, Fayoumy said. Landlords have been invited to attend on Sunday and renters on Monday.

But Essam, the Renters Association lawyer, said that those invited to attend on Monday are not members of the association, which has been organizing a unified position against the draft law.

The renters held a conference on Tuesday last week, attended by tenant associations and groups under the old rent law and parties affiliated with the Popular Front for Social Justice, with the participation of MPs Atef Maghawry and Sanaa al-Saeed.

In a closing statement, they criticized the government for failing to hold a sufficiently inclusive social dialogue and for “squandering the legitimate rights of three million residential and commercial tenants,” which they said represent at least 15 million people in total if the staff who work at commercial premises covered by the law are considered.

The conference also authorized Zohdy al-Shamy, chairman of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party board, alongside Essam and others to represent the tenants.

Speaking to Mada Masr, Shamy said that among those affected — and present at Tuesday’s conference — were tenants with disabilities and pensioners who served in state institutions. This, he argued, means that all national councils and state bodies representing these groups should be included in any community dialogue on the draft law.

Shamy emphasized that representatives of the tenants' conference are still prepared to communicate with any state institution, public institution or national council to express their complete rejection of the current draft.

Essam likewise stressed his conviction that it’s crucial for the association to be in communication with parliament and the housing committee. Despite the fact that they have not been invited to attend Monday’s dialogue session, he remained firm that their voices should be included.

"God willing, we will have a role in the hearings," he told Mada Masr.