Egypt’s Home of Representatives passed on Wednesday, 2 July, long-anticipated amendments to the Outdated Hire Regulation, formally approving new laws that can regularly terminate long-standing fixed-rent contracts.
Below the newly authorized regulation, residential tenants can be granted a seven-year transitional interval, whereas non-residential tenants, similar to these renting for industrial use, could have 5 years earlier than contracts are terminated.
After this era, all new rental agreements can be topic to Egypt’s Civil Code, which permits landlords and tenants to freely agree on phrases.
The regulation introduces a gradual 15 p.c annual improve in hire in the course of the transitional interval. As well as, present rental values can be adjusted upwards primarily based on location. In prime areas, rents might improve as much as 20 instances the present quantity, with a minimal set at EGP 1,000 (USD 20) per thirty days.
Center-income zones will see not less than a tenfold improve, with a minimal of EGP 400 (USD 8), whereas items in financial areas will rise to not less than EGP 250 (USD 5). For non-residential properties rented by people, the hire can be multiplied by 5.
The transfer follows a ruling by Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court docket in November 2024, which deemed fastened rents unconstitutional and referred to as for legislative intervention to deal with the long-standing imbalance between landlords and tenants.
Yesterday, Minister of Native Improvement Manal Awad affirmed that land had been allotted throughout a number of governorates for brand new housing developments aimed toward supporting affected households. She emphasised that the federal government wouldn’t abandon residents at present residing below previous lease contracts.
According to Egypt’s official statistics company CAPMAS, roughly 409,000 households fall below the class of authentic tenants, a lot of whom are over the age of 60. Cairo accounts for the biggest share of those households, adopted by Alexandria, Giza, and Dakahlia.
Officers preserve that the brand new laws aims to resolve a decades-old disaster whereas placing a steadiness between defending tenants and restoring rights to property homeowners.
The choice has confronted backlash, with MP Abdelmoneim Emam warning that many aged tenants may very well be left with nowhere to go as soon as the seven-year transitional interval ends.