Kindness and common sense

Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee called last week for legislation to protect small and medium business hit by the covid19 crisis.

It shouldn’t have to become law before it became obvious that demanding rent from companies in financial freefall or tenants cut off from income would be a bad idea in the medium term.

Rent is one of the dominoes that the country needs keep stable in the economic fallout from the isolation measures required by the threat of coronavirus infection.

The Prime Minister made the issue a talking point at a news conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s on Saturday as he called on landlords to share “the milk of human kindness.”

The issue of residential rent hit headlines last week when the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) stepped into a situation at its Wellington Gardens, Debe housing project.

The owner of an HDC home had sublet the property to a family and then threatened to evict them when they were unable to pay the rent because of job loss.

The corporation instead evicted the official tenant on the basis that he had contravened the terms of the housing agreement, which forbids subletting, and granted the family a stay of two months pending assessment.

That kind of clear thinking about actions and consequences is going to need to be amplified across a range of situations as isolation stretches on.

Property owners have their own property fees to meet whether they are occupied or not, but a hard line on rent collection that effectively destroys the businesses they have worked with profitably won’t help the economy to recover.

Residential tenants facing diminished income may also find themselves in a similar situation, and the conversations about rent adjustments in difficult circumstances will also need to proceed in good faith.

To make sense of these difficult situations, there will need to be more transparency on both sides of the rental agreement, with commercial landlords being more open to rent adjustments for shuttered businesses and tenants being more willing to co-operate, within their capacities, to craft mutually acceptable agreements.

An extended lockdown and business slowdown will inevitably begin to cause strains on individuals and businesses, so at some point the government will need to step in with policy guidelines for these financial arrangements that address the reality of diminished income and its impact on both landlords and tenants.

Calling for forbearance and appealing for continued good will are a soft first appeal, and it’s to be hoped that any necessary state interventions might fall short of introducing new legislation when designing clearer guidelines to manage this fundamental change in business expectations might clarify expectations on both sides.