In their lack of preparedness for the implications of any changes in the rent laws, (which was really displayed in all its sadness in he last Bondiplus show) AD have simply stuck to one aim – proposing a referendum while promising it is a win-win situation for all.

That it clearly is not and cannot be is now beyond doubt, except to AD diehards, and many are now doubting why there is a need for a referendum when these changes are being worked on by government as we speak?

For once, both the reds and the blues are in agreement. Justice must be done with long suffering landlords. The right of inheritance is unfair but the situation is very complex. The Greens, certainly in response to my reality checks, are toning down their wild claims too.

While initially giving the impression that affordable housing would result out of rent law changes, they are now back-pedalling furiously saying they never said that! Strange, that is what everyone understood them to say...

So now they are confirming that the rent law changes themselves will not affect prices in the sale market at least. Now they are trying to say it will create a better and healthier rental market. But is this what they want for us, or what we want for us? Is it what they have opted for? How many of them are renting rather than buying, I wonder?

The Greens seem to imply renting is so much better than owning. I do wonder whether Harry Vassallo, Edward Fenech et al are owners or tenants, but that, I guess, is a different story.

There is one very simple reason why people buy when they can, and not rent. Renting, modern renting post-1995, is very expensive. You need around Lm90 per month for a pretty basic flat, say in St Paul’s Bay or Marsascala, and really you need closer to Lm150 to get anything decent.

Young couples, single people and families look at this and think, this is quite a lot of money to pay and get nothing back: around Lm2,000 per annum. If this couple stay together for 50 years they will pay, (even very generously, assuming the rent will never go up) a staggering Lm100,000 in their 50 years. And then when they retire at 70 (assuming it could be the new retirement age) how are they going to pay rent when they are not working?

There is, so far at least, one supreme reason why buying is better than renting, if you can. How on earth can you pay commercial rents when you are old and on a state pension if you are not privately wealthy? At least, although a loan is a burden all through your life, once you have paid it off you can live rent payment free, something which becomes very difficult to do if you still have to pay rent at 70, 80, and even 90!

Of course, in Malta today there are many pensioners who are renting. These are either in these old fixed rents or in very low rent government flats because otherwise they clearly could not pay these rent levels which are today as much as many people’s total old age pension cheque

When Harry and co. talk about this heaven that they want, where more people would rent, how do they propose people would pay commercial rents in their old age in a country like Malta, particularly where the pension is fairly low, and you have to be very careful to manage?

Of course many of today’s pensioners were kids in wartime. They know about deprivation. They even know about hunger. They are very careful with their cents.

But look at today’s baby boomers, say those 40 plus, look at the post 20 something generation. How can they sustain themselves on modern pension levels? And how could they pay rent in their old age if they only have their state pension to live on and took Harry et al’s advice and never bought a property or took a loan?

Of course, there are problems with buying. A loan is not a pleasant thing but it is not all bad either. It encourages you to save rather than spend it all on nights out on booze, fags, women or men and all of the other pleasures of life. It is a pain for a young couple with both working, having to find Lm200 per month for an average modern loan.

But they will be far better off in their old age than the ones who are renting right now in Bugibba and Qawra. I am sure the government realises this but there is a time bomb of an expense waiting to explode.

This whole new large section of people who are renting today with the post 1995 lets, which give them no protection whatsoever, will face crisis if and when they become pensioners.

The government will have to foot the bill of paying modern commercial rents for these people when they get old because the private sector will not subsidise rents anymore.

It is a time bomb waiting to happen. AD’s wild claims about healthy rental markets at no cost to the government or individuals are not worth the paper they are written on.

Do not be misled by these wild promises...