chiller again

Last August I blogged about the latest fashion of landlords, which is charging imaginary fees of all kinds - including chiller charges - in order to make up for the money they "lose" through the rent cap.

Well, since then, seems like the chiller thing has somewhat become of an epidemic. However, here is the good news for all of you. This issue has been raised to the rent committee and the landlords and real estate agents have LOST this case.
Basically the law says, that your tenancy agreement must be renewed exactly as it is. If it is not renewed as it is (except for the legal rent increase) - then it is not considered a renewal.
In my friend's case, Rocky Real Estate tried to play very smart. They issued a new tenancy contract - but besides that also issued a separate invoice to all tenants in those buildings worth in average 12000 AED per apartment. Here's the trick: Rocky refused to sign the tenancy contracts of anyone who did not pay them the "other fees", they also refused to accept the Cheques for the tenancy agreement renewal. By doing this, they could claim, that the tenants did not pay their rent and would hence try to kick them out the flats. RIDICULOUS.
Anyway, if any of you has to struggle with their landlord/real estate agent about such charges, please head straight to the rent committee. Rocky gave this statement: "If we invoice 100 apartments the extra fees, less than 10% will complain to the rent committee, so we still make our money".
Please pass on this info to your friends and blog readers.

Chill out, landlords

One must admire the creativity that comes alive within a landlords' brain, once his greed buttons are switched on. I've got several friends right now, suffering from a new landlord sickness, the "chiller fever".
During the rental term they have a received an invoice from their landlord (without further explanation), saying that although the AC was free in the building, they now decided to start charging for the chiller. Cheapest chiller fees for a 1 bedroom start at 3600 AED a year. I find that unbelievable. The rent committee didn't comment and seems is not interested to follow up on such "small" issues.
I say - cool idea landlords, easy way to make an extra couple of hundred thousand dirhams a year with no extra effort! No honestly, I hope you choke on the money.