Rent law reform is needed

President Michel Sleiman announced he would not sign the rent law on May 7, 2014. The following leader appeared in Executive’s print edition on May 1. Last month, Lebanon’s Parliament almost consigned to history one of the country’s most archaic laws. The old rent law artificially holds down the rents of tens of thousands of tenants across the country at astronomically low levels. In central Beirut, for example, thousands of families pay less than $100 a month for flats in prime areas. Similar-sized apartments not under rental protection can cost 10 times that (see article “Rumble in the urban jungle“). While this may be a huge benefit for those residents, it is deeply unfair to the owners of the buildings who see their properties waste away, unable to charge market rates. Yet the issue is more than merely a battle of tenant versus landlord. At a macro level, the old