The government has increased rent benefits for lessees who are struggling to make ends meet because of the challenges they are facing due to the Covid-19 crisis, Minister for Social Accommodation Roderick Galdes said today.

He was speaking during a press conference on Thursday morning where he outlined the measures that are being taken to assist lessees affected by Covid-19.

He explained that around 20% of the population in Malta rents their place of residence, so the ministry immediately starting working to give aid to anyone who could not pay their dues.

Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, the government had already introduced a measure wherein lessees can apply to have the government pay a portion of their rent. This measure was based on the idea that nobody should be using up more than a quarter of their salary to pay rent.

Housing Authority CEO Leonid McKay explained that €3.7 million has been spent on this till now and 25% of the people benefitting from this have the government paying 60% to 80% of the money.

Today, Galdes announced that this measure has been improved so that the government will pay over 80% of the rent for those facing difficulties due to the pandemic. This includes people who have lost their job or will lose it, those who were suspended form work, self-employed individuals and those who have experienced domestic violence.

McKay said that the Housing Authority has sent around 2,000 letters to inform those people who are benefitting already from the rent benefit so that they know that they can apply for an increase if they experienced difficulties.

Glades said that this benefit will last till the Covid-19 situation clears up and the ministry has already received 30 applications – 28% of which are self-employed while 72% have either lost their job or have reduced pay. Moreover, 60% of these were already benefitting from the previous scheme and have now experienced the increase while the other 40% are completely new applicants.

He is glad to see that, despite the current crisis, the property registrar that was released at the start of the year is still experiencing a number of applications – having 8,000 contracts registered till now.

McKay said that the authority has also taken measures to help both lessees and landlords during this crisis.

“If there was something that came out clearly is that home is the first line of defence against this virus since we are being encouraged to stay home. Therefore, we couldn’t not stand by the minister’s side and continue on the work we were already doing.”

McKay pointed out that some landlords have been kind enough to lower their rent for any lessees facing difficulties at the time. While thanking them, he explained that the contract between the landlord and the lessee does not need to altered in this regard as the authority does not want to interfere between the two. “We realised that most landowners want to have a long lasting relationship with their lessees so we do not want to affect it in any way.”

The authority has also it has suspended the late registration fee from the contract wherein landlords would be fined if they do not register 10 days after they apply.

Additionally, they issued a moratorium for anyone who bought property from it if they are not able to keep up with the loan.