LAHORE
There are more than six parallel rent laws that govern the landlord-tenant relationship in Pakistan. However, serious lacunas in these laws result in long-drawn litigation between the two parties and overburden the courts.
In absence of laws that explain the relationship between both sides, the matters between the landlord and tenant remain insecure in most cases.
All such laws are based on the West Pakistan Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance 1959. The rent laws applicable in different areas of Pakistan are, The Islamabad Rent Restriction Ordinance 2001, The NWFP/Balochistan Rent Restriction Ordinance 1959, Sindh Rented Premises Ordinance 1979 and the Punjab Rented Premises Act 2009.
Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) has its own rent laws while the Cantonment Rent Restriction Act 1963 covers the cantonment areas declared by the federal government through notification in the official gazette. The main objective of all such laws is to regulate the relationship between the landlords and tenants keeping in mind the rights and interests of both the parties.
Despite repeated amendments, no law has been created which could satisfy both the landlords and tenants. Due to this situation, the rent controller courts are overburdened and the number of cases filed in the courts is increasing rapidly – with tenants exploiting the loopholes in the rent laws to retain possession of the rented property, and the landlords wanting to get maximum rent by letting out their property frequently.
Owner of a residential property situated in common localities could easily earn money equal to the price of the property by renting it out for 12 to 18 years while in posh and commercial areas, the time span is even shorter. In the Indian sub-continent, the first attempt for regularising the landlord-tenant relationship goes back to 1882, when the British government promulgated the Transfer of Property Act 1882.
After Pakistan’s establishment, the Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act 1941 was the first law made to highlight the relationship between the landlords and tenants. The law was soon substituted by the Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act 1947, which placed some restrictions on rights of the landlord to evict the tenants at his own will.
The act created a special tribunal for settlement of disputes between landlords and tenants. The 1947 Act was replaced by the Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act 1949, which was subsequently amended by the Punjab Act XVI 1952.
In 1956, following establishment of one unit and consolidation of all provinces into a single federating unit called West Pakistan, all previous laws were replaced by the West Pakistan Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance 1956. The ordinance was followed by the West Pakistan Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance 1957 and the West Pakistan Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance 1959.
The new ordinance remained in force until 1970, when the one unit was dissolved. Afterwards, the ordinance was adopted in different forms by Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The ordinance remains enforced until now but provinces have made changes to the law.
The latest law concerning rent matters is the Punjab Rented Premises Act 2009, which focused on the agreements between the landlord and tenant. According to the act, as soon as the period of tenancy expired, the agreement also becomes null and void. In earlier rent laws in Punjab and other parts of the country, the landlord’s personal needs for evicting the tenant was the main concern.
Senior lawyer Zafar Iqbal Kalanauri told Pakistan Today that the relations between the landlord and tenant were as old as human civilisation. He said that in the past, property disputes were solved verbally but now the rent controller courts solved such problems.
Kalanauri said that it was not easy to get relief from the rent controller courts, because a case took two to three and a half years to complete in the rent courts, around 8 to 10 months in the appellate court of a district and sessions judge and in case of a second appeal or revision in the high court, it took 7 to 8 years to finally dispose of the case.
