Rent dispute cases reach 1,500 a month

As rent disputes continue to bedevil tenants and landlords, the committee set up to deal with the rows has been hearing 1,500 court cases a month.

The number of court cases at Qatar’s Committee for Solving Rental Disputes has reached 1,500 hearings a month since its opening in October last year.

Sanctioned by the new rent law in February 2008, the committee was set up after a decree was issued by HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani on October 8.

“The number of grievances – either by the landlords or tenants – continues to spike since we opened after Ramadan last year,” an official at the Committee, located in Muntazah (now Rawda Al Khail) told Gulf Times.

“The last hearing date before two-month-long summer vacation has been set at June 30 from what I understand. The holidays could be changed though since Ramadan falls in August this year,” he explained.

The cases averaged at 150-a month back in November 2008, according to a previous Gulf Times report. “Most of the cases are villa related followed by filing of disputes by agents or tenants on eviction notices,” the official said.

Majority of the cases filed by property-owners relate to non-payment of rent by the tenants and rental payments that were bounced.

The Law No 4 of 2008 approved that a panel headed by a judge and two other members be set up at the committee; their rulings, binding on both parties, can be challenged only in an appeal court.

The Emiri decree then additionally ordered five such panels within the committee that works under the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Urban Planning. “All the five panels have been assigned one day of the week each,” the official said.

Meanwhile, the other aspect of the law also called for setting up ‘Offices for the Registration of Rental Contracts’ that started functioning at all the municipalities of Qatar some three months after it was approved. All tenancy contracts now have to be registered with these offices – mostly located at the respective municipal headquarters – by the landlords.

Qatar has a total of seven municipalities; Doha, Dayaan, Al Khor, Al Wakrah, Ar Rayyan, Shamal and Umm Salal. “In addition to cases, tenants whose landlords have refused to take rent for whatever reasons also come here to deposit the payments,” the official observed.

The sprawling office has a team of translators for non-Arabic speakers, the official said in reply to a question related to the language-barrier as all the forms to initiate any legal process are in Arabic. When asked whether the number of court cases is likely to continue to climb, the official said: “There is no end to this.”

“There are now extremely greedy elements involved in the rental market in the country.