Commerce Commission to Investigate Some Landlords on Illegal Rental Increase
Abraham said: “We have drafted a Landlord and Tenants Act based on the types of complaints we have received in the past six years and this act tries to cover issues that we have seen that landlords and tenants face.”
The Fiji Commerce Commission will investigate some landlords for illegal rental increases and non-issue of rent receipts in Nadi.
This after several direct complaints were made to the Commerce Commission chief executive, Joel Abraham, during the Landlords and Tenants Act consultation at Nadi Civic Centre yesterday. And in order to curb issues as such legally, Mr Abraham has requested people to come forward and make submissions before the consultation committee to help them better figure what more needs to be addressed in the Act before it is sent to Parliament. “We have drafted a Landlord and Tenants Act based on the types of complaints we have received in the past six years and this act tries to cover issues that we have seen that landlords and tenants face,” Mr Abraham said. “There are various issues that we have received over the past years and what we are trying to do is to incorporate that into a legislation that adequately addresses these needs that is balanced both for landlords and tenants so we found that both face issues.” He has called tenants and landlords to come forward and make submissions, call the office of the Commission or reach out through social media page. “We encourage people to come and make oral submissions, people can write to us through letters or Facebook or call as well,” he added. “Our outreach on Facebook has reached about 6000 people so we expect people to come around and make submissions.
“It should be noted that currently Fiji does not have any legislation in particular that deals with the Landlord and Tenants issues under one law.” Some of the issues that rose today included landlords also complaining of tenants not paying their rents, not being able to recover from repairs expenditure, bonds as well as bills. More than 40 people were present at the consultation which Mr Abraham said was notable as compared to very poor turnout in the Central Division. Today the team will be in Sigatoka.