Sliema Landlord Demands €1,000 For A Room In Shared Apartment
The apartment was located by the Sliema Ferries. Photo: Google Maps
Rents in Malta have exploded in recent years and the current state of the market has been laid bare after a landlord valued a room in a shared apartment in Sliema at €1,000.
A French national told Lovin Malta that the apartment he currently lives in, which is centrally located by the Sliema Ferries, has two rooms – an ensuite room with a double bed and a smaller bedroom which originally had three beds.
The landlord valued the ensuite room at €800 and the other bedroom at €1,200, meaning that each of the five tenants had to pay him €400 a month. After two of the three tenants in the second bedroom moved out, the landlord removed a bed and lowered the room’s price to €1,000.
This information is backed up by private chats seen by this website.
“He gave me a few days until the 1st of September to find a new tenant with whom to split the bill, otherwise I would have to either have to pay the full €1,000 myself or find a new place to live,” the tenant said. “A French girl was interested at first but she backed out because she thought the price was too expensive. The room is small and hot and without even an air conditioner as the landlord told us that would cost us an extra €100 a month. It was hard to find someone who wanted to pay so much money to live in those conditions.”
The tenant was left particularly baffled at the landlord’s logic behind charging €800 for an ensuite double room and €1,000 for a smaller room with two beds and no bathroom.
“The fact that he’s renting out a larger room in the same apartment for a cheaper price isn’t fair,” he said.
And with no rental contract to safeguard his rights, the tenant was left with no other option but to start house-hunting.
The government last year pledged to launch a White Paper on private rents, which Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has said will stabilise the market and clamp down on rent abuse but without state intervention in the market.
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