I OPPOSE Jersey government’s proposed changes to legal working relationships between residential tenants and landlords. Contrary to ‘improving residential tenancies’, open-ended agreements will have deleterious effects for both tenants and landlords.

Almost all tenants in my experience request a one- (and occasionally) twoyear lease. This also serves landlords well. Introducing compulsory open-ended leases is to the detriment of landlords only. A one-year or two-year initial agreement affords landlords and tenants the opportunity to assess whether the landlord-tenant relationship is good enough to renew.

Under the proposed new law, the tenant can terminate the lease with short notice, but landlords have no such protection. They may have to suffer a very troublesome tenant for many years.

A troublesome, difficult tenant can make the lives of their landlord and neighbours a nightmare and yet, the tenant might not necessarily be breaking clauses in the lease agreement to the extent that the tenant merits eviction. In such a case, recourse to the proposed tribunal wouldn’t provide a viable solution for the Iandlord. Under a one-year or two-year agreement, which is presently the norm, the landlord needn’t renew the agreement, thereby ending a difficult relationship.

I put this scenario to Deputy David Warr and Deputy Sam Mézec. They didn’t understand the landlord’s predicament and responded saying the landlord can go to the tribunal, rather than the Petty Debts Court. I’m not speaking about getting monetary recompense.

Deputy Mézec wrote to me, saying, ‘Hopefully a housing tribunal… would leave nowhere for both bad landlords and bad tenants to hide’.

There is a broad range of behaviours, which, when inflicted continually, can be onerous and unbearable and yet unseen by third parties. Bad and abusive actions would be denied by the tenant at a tribunal and the tenant would most likely add false allegations of their own. The landlord would have wasted much time, emotional stress and possibly legal fees to have a tribunal hearing.

With no proof, the tribunal would not offer any solution for the landlord. Besides, it gives no solace to substitute an uncertain solution through a tribunal that may well miss psychological damages to the landlord: this isn’t a place a tribunal would go to address the grievance of a landlord, who alone should be the arbiter of whether to tolerate such abuse. A ‘getting acquainted’ period of a one-/two-year lease (with no break clause) would protect the landlord from having to indefinitely suffer continual abuse.

If this law comes to pass, it will be easier for a married person to divorce an abusive spouse, than for a landlord to end a tenancy with an abusive tenant.

Giving the landlords free choice regarding the desirability of the tenancy to a tribunal is a recipe for disaster and undemocratic.

A ‘get acquainted’ period is an essential part of all human relationships: an employer has a probation period with employees, a couple who are to marry have an engagement period.

I propose the law is changed as follows: initial leases last for one- or two-year periods by mutual agreement, after which, for the tenant’s security of tenure, and where mutually agreed, the lease can be renewed for a three-year period. After this period, it can be renewed for a fouryear period if mutually agreed, followed by a five-year period, if mutually agreed. And finally, an open-ended lease period can be mutually agreed. During all these agreements, the annual rental increase is stipulated and cannot be higher than that allowed by the government. The Housing Minister’s wish for an open-ended lease would be achieved with due process, benefitting both parties.

The government’s current proposed open-ended tenancy agreement would expose landlords to such an extent that many will choose alternative investments and sell their rental property/ies. This will greatly reduce the number of rental properties in Jersey, which are already adversely affected because of the recent 3% additional stamp duty payable on second properties or more, and the ongoing higher mortgage rates, currently 6% on buy-to-lets. Fewer rental properties would be detrimental to tenants.

‘Revenge eviction’ refers to break clauses in some lease agreements, whereby the landlord (or tenant) can give notice of ending the agreement, supplying no reason. The proposed new legislation removes this option from landlords, but this right remains for tenants. Tenants might have sold their home and rented to be able to buy a desirable new home quickly. Landlords who have paid an expensive finder’s fee would have to pay a second finder’s fee and possibly endure a void between tenancies. It is fair that such tenants pay the costs of reassigning the lease rather than breaking it.

Why not have an initial lease agreement for a one- or two-year ‘getting acquainted’ duration, during which time the break clause can only be implemented by either party for government-stipulated reasons? This would provide security of tenure for the initial one-/two-year tenancy, followed by longer term leases, building up to an open-ended lease agreement. To base the whole logic of open-ended tenancies on the fact some leases have a landlord’s break clause is over-kill.

Open-ended tenancies should, at the very least, be agreed only on the provision there are no substantive changes to the tenancy. For example, an agreement might be for two occupants of a property and the tenant might invite many friends or relatives to live with him/her (rent-free – so no subletting). As the new proposed legislation stands, the landlord would have no control over the number of occupants of his/her property.

Some tenants are also landlords, who choose not to live in their own property. They are not ‘homeless’.

Private landlords invest in rental property to make a return for their investment. They are an important part of the housing market. They are not an extension of social housing, nor is it their role to fill gaps left by the States of Jersey.

The government should not be treating private landlords as though they are an extension of States services and to fill inadequacies.

• Angela Siddell moved to Jersey as a teenager in the 1960s, but went to live in the UK after marrying a British Airways pilot in 1973. She returned to the Island in 2000 and set up a private practice as a psychodynamic therapist and couple counsellor. She owns and manages several rental properties.