JEDDAH, 27 March 2003 — Hoping to get rid of his tenant, landlord Salem Basandoh agreed to forgo six months rent which amounted to more than SR8,000. By doing so, the landlord hoped the Sudanese tenant would leave the apartment, and at the same time, the landlord would save himself the trouble of constantly asking for the rent. Recovering the money through the legal system would, in any case, have been a long-drawn-out and expensive process. The Sudanese tenant, however, stayed put.
Basandoh made a second offer. If the tenant left the apartment within 10 weeks, Basandoh would make him a gift of SR3,000. The tenant claimed that he would be unable to afford moving his furniture so Basandoh agreed to cover the cost of that as well. Like many Saudis, Basandoh had built the apartment building as an investment but ended up losing money.
This is only one of hundreds of cases where tenants refuse to pay their rent on grounds of poverty. Landlords are now demanding stricter regulations to protect themselves and their investments.
One landlord, Abdul Kareem Al-Azab, told Al-Riyadh newspaper that collecting rent was a never-ending problem that required enormous patience. On one occasion, he was shocked to discover that a tenant who was pleading poverty had bought a new car. Another tenant claimed he had been fired but nevertheless left the house every day to go to work!
Al-Azab said that some landlords now carefully investigate their prospective tenants’ past history and financial standing. “The landlord wants to know where the tenant works and how much he earns. What kind of family does he come from? Landlords will go to great lengths to avoid the problem of non-payment of rent.”
The more tenants refuse to pay, the more complicated the situation becomes. And landlords of course have their own ways of getting rid of tenants. The tenants are sometimes told that the landlord’s son is about to marry and move into what is presently a tenant-occupied flat. “Landlords will even overlook outstanding debts. Anything to get rid of a non-paying tenant,” Al-Azab added.
