SANTO DOMINGO.- The "General Law on Real Estate Rentals" project, presented in the session of Wednesday, September 4th, in the Senate of the Republic, proposes that in case of readjustment of the price of a rental property, this should not exceed 7% annually.
“The readjustment of the housing price will be subject to the agreement between the parties, without exceeding seven percent annually, taking into account the indexation for inflation,” states Article 11 of the proposal.
The bill that was passed to the Justice Committee was authored by Senators Alexis Victoria Yeb, from the province of María Trinidad Sánchez, and Ramón Rogelio Genao, representative of La Vega.
In the case of the proposal presented by the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Alfredo Pacheco, who also submitted a bill of this same nature to that legislative body in August of 2022, the readjustment of the price of housing will be subject to the agreement between the parties, according to article 11, with a paragraph that reads:
“If the parties have not stipulated the time or amount in which the adjustment of the housing price will be made, the updated inflation rate at the time, reported by the Central Bank, will be taken as a reference.”.
Repair without increase
As outlined in Article 26 of Pacheco's proposal, homeowners will not be able to increase rent, even if they renovate leases. This has been one of the points of contention raised by the Dominican Association of Housing Builders (Acoprovi), which has warned that legally regulating rent increases would lead homeowners to set high rents when drafting contracts, "trying to protect themselves from the financial risks" the regulations would pose.
“Without the right to raise the rent, the owner is obliged to repair whatever is necessary in order to keep the property in good condition for the use for which it has been intended, unless the deterioration is attributable to the tenant or, by this law or agreement, it is the tenant's responsibility to repair it,” highlights Article 27 of the bill submitted to the Senate of the Republic.
Regarding the commission
In its article 10 paragraph 1, the Senate bill establishes that in no case may the owner demand the advance payment of more than one month's rent, except by agreement of the parties.
“When a real estate commission must be paid for rental purposes, the responsibility for its settlement will correspond to the owner or his legal representative, provided that the latter has contracted the brokerage management,” says paragraph two, article 10.
