Chief Rent Officer in charge of Rent Control Department, Mr. Twum Ampofo has stated that the Rent Act 220 (1963) and the Legislative Instrument (LI) 1964 forbid landlords from preparing tenancy agreements.
According to him, the landlords most often prepare the tenancy agreements to favour themselves when the Rent Control Department allowed them to do so; hence, the institution which is serving as the referee between the two parties has prepared standard tenancy agreement to be used by both.
Speaking to the media on Wednesday May 22, 2019 as part of its activities to revive the potency of the state institution in addressing rent issues in the country, Mr. Twum Ampofo said that even though the Rent Act is outmoded, it is still used as the law to govern rent issues in the country as plans are underway to repeal the law.
He however was of the view that Ghanaians have lost trust in the Rent Control Department due to their inability to understand the application of the rent law during trials at rent court; thus, they sometimes assume to be right in their actions before the trial starts.
“Whether people trust rent control or not largely depends on the rent court as the public may have ruled in favour of the tenant, but the application of the Act during court session at the Rent Control may work against the tenant; hence, people tend not to trust the institution due to their frustration over the outcome of the ruling,” he stated.
“For instance, someone decides to rent his place to a tenant and the tenant noticing some problems in the room then accepted to fix the challenges; the law states emphatically that before the tenant fixes the problems in the room, parties have to sit down and the landlord has to give you the approval in written (section 21 of the Rent Act). But if the tenant comes to complain that he has used his money to fix a problem in the room without any written document to back it, we cannot have the power to enforce that expenditure on behalf of the tenant because that is not what the law says,” he quoted.
He reiterated that rent matters are delicate which must be taken serious as they can even travel as far as Parliament; consequently, “if you don’t take care you be in trouble and that is why we have the Rent Act which every Ghanaian must be aware of and ensure its compliance in every tenancy agreement”.
He insisted that the rent law, section 32 (b) explicitly states that “if you worked on the room without any written document to support it and you lived in the house for more than 6 years and now you decide to use the money spent on fixing the room to settle your rent payment, the law will just squash it. We have limitation law and it will squash it outright”.
He therefore cautioned Ghanaians to always demand for documented tenancy agreement after making payment for an apartment from landlords as through the tenancy agreement has the dos and don’ts spelt out for both the landlords and the tenants.
“In fact, we have standard tenancy agreement at Rent Control . . . the landlord can use the standard tenancy agreement from the Rent Control but what we have notice is that when we ask the landlords to prepare the tenancy agreement for their tenants, they often make those which will favour them mostly and so we have agreed that tenancy agreement should come for Rent Control,” he stated.
He charged Ghanaians to ensure that their tenancy agreements are prepared by the authorized state institution which does not favour both the landlord and the tenant; stressing that “all the parties need do is to adhere to the rules spelt out in the agreement”.
“ . . so if we want fairness in tenancy agreements in the country, it should not be the landlords who must prepare them,” he cautioned.
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