House Rents in Ctg City
Arbitrary hikes leave tenants struggling
Two days before the end of the year 2012, Dipankar Barua, a tenant in Aturar Depot area of Chittagong city, received an envelope from his landlord.
He took it for a new year's greeting card, but to his utter surprise he found that it was a letter of notification for a rental hike of Tk 2,000 on his small apartment.
Dipankar, a senior chemist at a refined edible oil company, earns no more than Tk 30,000 a month. He now wonders how he could afford Tk 9,000 every month only on house rent from January.
With the year end, many tenants have received either a written or a verbal notice from the landlords for increased house rents from January.
According to various sources, three fourths of the 50 lakh people living in Chittagong city are believed to be tenants. And arbitrary and indiscriminate hikes in home rents, with the excuse of end of year, have left this struggling mass in disarray.
SM Nazer Hossain, president of Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), Chittagong, said house rent in the port city has increased by 342 percent in the last 20 years. He viewed that there should be stricter regulations from the authorities to look into the interests of the harassed tenants.
Students and other working professionals are compelled to rent homes in the city as commuting from suburban areas on a daily basis is tedious and expensive.
A good number of people come to the city to enrol their children in reputed educational institutions. All these add up to the accommodation crisis in the city.
In most cases, accommodation seeking people are helpless to the demands of the greedy house owners. The house owners take full advantage of the situation.
Many tenants alleged that a section of owners increase rent twice a year while others said the owners increase the rent even up to 50 percent at a time.
A resident of West Bakalia area, Tanvir Hasan, said the owners on one hand increase house rents illogically, and on the other they refuse to give any receipt against the payments to evade income tax.
They just threaten with some words like "you pay the increased rent or vacate the house immediately," he said.
Residents of Chawk Bazar area alleged that some of the owners of the colonies in this area have increased house rents by up to 50 percent although they had pledged last year that the rise would be limited to 10 percent.
In a similar instance, Shah Jamal, a resident of Sugandha Residential Area, said his flat's owner has served an unsigned notice on him to pay Tk 500 more monthly though according to the agreement the rise was supposed to be Tk 250.
Jamal, also general secretary of Tenants Welfare Association, Chittagong, said the house owners bother little about the tenants.
He said Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) can play a vital role in addressing the problem. "They take holding tax from the house owners where most of the owners submit false statements of assessment to evade tax,†he added.
Shital Babu, owner of the building that Jamal resides on rent, however, said he does not increase the rent arbitrarily rather he increases it as per the deeds with the tenants.
Asked about Jamal's complaint about increasing of the rent violating the agreement, he said, "I will not put any pressure on him, if he does not want to pay so.â€
CCC's Chief Revenue Officer Dipak Chakraborty said they have nothing to do with house rent as it is not the authority to look into it. If any tenant is harassed, he may go to court seeking legal action against the owners, he told The Daily Star.
General Secretary of District Bar Association Adv Ashok Kumar Das said the harassed tenants can seek legal action against the house owners under "House Rent Control Ordinance."
Many such cases are pending in Chittagong courts as these are not pursued by the tenants, he said, adding that tenants are not organised against "greedy landlords".
When asked, Jasim Uddin, owner of Bilkis Manjil in East Sholashahar area, said prices of everything including the daily necessities have shot up. “So I have no way but to increase the house rent. But I increase the rent in a reasonable way.â€
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