Disadvantages Of Old Rent Law

A- Introduction
The old rent law in Lebanon was enacted after the end of the World War II, in order to protect the rights of tenants from greedy landowners. The law was based on freezing all rental agreements made before this date. This law did not take into consideration inflation, the eventual rise in wages, and the increase in the rental housing market. After the Civil War in 1992, the rent market was liberated, and new contracts were allowed. Landlords were able to raise rent after three years. But the issue of landlords with tenants paying old rents remained.
After the collapse of the building in Fassouh Neighborhood in Ashrafieh in 2012, because of the lack of maintenance, the debate about the consequences of the Old Rent law in Beirut,

This old rent law in Beirut, despite its flaws, is suppressing gentrification by keeping the middle class in affordable housing units in the center of the city.
B- Disadvantages of the Old Rent Law in Lebanon
The Old rent law in Beirut has a lot of disadvantages. This fixed law shifted the responsibly of the state to provide affordable housing to individual landlords. Instead they obliged the landlords to solve issues beyond their ability. In addition to that, landowners had to take the full financial risk caused by this policy. This law also created a Rent Gap, caused by the low returns for the owners which do not exceed few hundreds of dollars per year. This rent gap has two consequences: the low revenues from the rents, prevent the owners from paying for maintenance, which results in a poor living conditions and sometimes could lead

Because of the uncertain social costs, the old rent law is a very delicate issue to be tackled by the political establishment. Due to the political instability in Lebanon, any practical modification is accepted, only under the force of a government capable of managing the demands of the landlord’s lobbies and providing solid and fair general solutions. One of the proposed solutions is liberalizing all rents in a six year period; with an annual 15% increase the first four years and a 20% in the last two years. In addition to that, a governmental fund needs to be established for a nine year period to help vulnerable families in this transitional phase, before a progressive construction of public