The Legislative Department of the General Secretariat of the Cabinet and the Permanent Committee for Legislative Affairs are taking necessary steps to ensure that some provisions of new rent law enforced early last year are amended to facilitate a landlord to take a rented property back from a tenant for personal use. The Cabinet has already intimated the Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning of the need to amend Article 19 of the above law (Number 4 of 2008) which specifies that an owner has to serve on tenant a notice at least six months in advance if a rented property is wanted back for his use or the use of one of his dependents. Once the amendment is introduced, all a landlord would need to do to take a rented property back for the above purpose is to simply inform the tenant. The amended provisions, it is learnt, will not apply only to houses parts of which have been rented out, but also to such residential units that may be located far from the place of dwelling of a landlord. The proposal requesting the above amendments was originally tabled in the Advisory Council by member Rashid bin Hamad Al Medadi, and referred to the Cabinet after a threadbare debate. Law Number of 37 of 2008, which governs rent-related disputes and ways of their resolution, is also being amended, primarily to make uniform the fee landlords pay at the rate of one percent of annual rental to the municipality through the rent resolution. According to legal circles, a fixed fee might be decided (instead of one percent of an entire year’s rental) for all rent contracts. The amendment will also make sure that landlords will have the legal right to review existing rent contracts and demand increased rentals in view of the current economic situation worldwide. http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=Qatar+News&month=June2009&file=Local_News200906182306.xml

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