Two Legal Notices have recently been published following the enactment of the Private Residential Leases Act.

Legal Notice 354 of 2019 on the Adjudicating Panel for Private Residential Leases Regulations, 2019.

The Adjudicating Panel for Private Residential Leases is set up by virtue of the Act with exclusive jurisdiction to decide disputes relating to private residential leases to which the Act applies, in so far as the claim does not exceed the value of five thousand euro (€5,000).

The Regulation provides details on the adjudicating proceedings, namely the contents of the claim, the statement of defence, and counter-claim.  These may be filed through an online system.

Parties need to prove facts to support their claim or defence while the Adjudicating Panel can ask for further written statements and fix time periods for communicating such statements which periods cannot exceed five working days. Experts can be called in as necessary and any decision shall be made by a majority of the members of the Adjudicating Panel and shall be in writing.

Legal Notice 355 of 2019 on the Registration of Private Residential Lease Contracts Regulations, 2019

Legal Notice 355 of 2019 provides model contracts for leases of shared residential spaces, short private residential leases and long private residential leases. If these sample contracts are  not used, then a standard form needs to be attached to this contract and if there is any conflict between the contract and the standard form, it is the details contained in the standard form that would prevail. The sample contracts as well as the standard form are annexed to the Legal Notice.

All provisions relating to the new regulations on residential leases came into force on 1st January 2020.

Iuris Malta has assisted clients in numerous cases on issues related to leases. For further information or assistance on matters related to leases, one can contact our offices and speak directly to one of our lawyers in the firm.