The gentle art of rent reform
Following the publicity accompanying the launch of the White Paper on Rent Reform, the actual legislation mainly amending the provisions of the Civil Code on the institute of lease has been introduced very quietly in June this year by Act X of 2009. The now published legislation has departed significantly from what the White Paper promised, or threatened - to those on the other side, but, on the whole, the thrust has been to bring about what the government has called a fair balance between the financial expectations of the landlord and what in effect is the social service provided by these landlords in being forced to accept the renewal ad infinitum of leases way beyond the original contractual period at more or less pre-war levels of rent. An attempt, in other words, to give a bit to each side in the vain hope of being everything to everyone. This it has sadly done with at times incomprehensible drafting. I first read the English version, assuming this was the original, and then in de