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Review: P.24/2025 - Draft Residential Tenancy (Jersey) Amendment Law 202-
Submission: John Le Bas
Dated: 6 May 2025
As far as I can see there will not be a good outcome if these proposals are brought in.
Deputy Mézec states that 'revenge evictions' are a serious threat to tenants but when I asked him for figures to uphold his assertions, he told me he didn't have any figures. Too often we are told things which are probably plucked out of the English Press but are not relevant to Jersey.
Why open-ended leases? My tenants have usually a one-year lease with the rent stated at the beginning. I can't suddenly evict them or increase the rent.
We both (Tenant and Landlord) understand where we are and what is expected of us so why change it?
I had a tenant who wanted a five-year lease, so we gave it to them, but about a couple of years later they wanted to leave because they were offered a house to buy. What were we supposed to do? They wanted to leave so we could hardly expect them to continue paying us rent. The only ones to benefit from a long lease is the tenant
Rent Control This has been proved to NOT WORK in the longer term.
How are we supposed to maintain or even IMPROVE our properties to achieve the standards that the Environmental Health Department want us to, with smaller and smaller returns?
The RPI is currently at 2.3% which is good, but my building maintenance costs have gone up by a great deal more than that.
Also, we know that one day the RPI will go above 5% so what makes anyone think that Landlords will continue in an industry with diminishing returns?
Either the standards will slip, or people will leave the industry.