Kuwait Lawmakers Submit Draft Law To Exempt Businesses Tenants From Paying Rent

Kuwait Lawmakers Submit Draft Law To Exempt Businesses Tenants From Paying Rent

Kuwait Lawmakers submitted two separate draft laws calling to exempt businesses affected by the coronations from paying rent throughout the crisis. The two bills could eventually be merged into one as they await the approval of the legal and legislative committee and the Assembly next week.

Kuwait legal committee last week approved amendments to the rent law stipulating that landlords will not be able to evict their tenants if they fail to pay the rent during shutdowns. The amendment states that the court will decide the way such tenants will pay the unpaid rent, mostly in installments.

As per his tweet, MP Al-Humaidi Al-Subaei said, the ministry of justice has accepted his draft law which proposes a provision to the civil law that would allow courts to exempt business tenants from paying the rent since March 12, when the country began the shutdowns.

As per his proposal, if the government orders a shutdown of economic activities as a result of epidemics, earthquakes, natural catastrophes or wars, business tenants will be exempted from paying the rent throughout the shutdown if their businesses were partially or completely affected.

Yesterday, Five MPs – Safa Al-Hashem, Ahmad Al-Fadhl, Nasser Al-Dossari, Khalaf Dumaitheer and Khaled Al-Shatti – submitted a similar law that calls to exempt business tenants from paying the rent for six months in case of disasters, catastrophes or epidemics. The affected businesses will also be exempted from 60 percent of the rent for another six month period depending on the duration of the shutdowns. In all cases, the landlord will not be able to force the tenant out during the emergency period.