EXPERTS on renting, letting or consumer advocacy have been encouraged to apply to a new tribunal which will apply the new Residential Tenancy Law.
The new law gives tenants a number of new rights – including capping rent rises at RPI – and includes provision for a Jersey Rent Tribunal to consider appeals against rent increases.
The panel’s chair and deputy chair will be required to hold a law degree or equivalent, and ideally would have at least five years’ experience practicing as an advocate or solicitor in Jersey.
Panel members need experience of housing and tenancy matters and should ideally have expertise on tenants, landlords or consumer affairs.
Chair and deputy chair will be paid £400 per half-day sitting, and panel members will be paid £150 per sitting.
Housing minister Sam Mézec said the panel was “an excellent opportunity for Islanders to help shape the future of Jersey’s rental market”.
Members would “make a real difference – delivering fair rents and driving positive change in our community,” he said.
They could, for example, come from the charitable sector or have past experience in the lettings sector and know the processes.
A previous attempt to form a rent control tribunal in 2022 saw a panel put forward by then-housing minister David Warr, which included the chair of the Jersey Landlords Association.
Deputy Mézec – then a backbench politician – criticised the panel at the time for being “stacked with landlords”.
The final deadline for applications is 30 January and those interested in applying can do so by heading to careers.gov.je/content/Leading-our-Island.
Temps Passé
The law allowing for a panel to be appointed to review whether rent increases are fair dates back to 1946.
In 1981, the JEP reported that the island’s Rent Control Tribunal cut the quarterly rent of a cottage on Don Road from £165 to just £5, after the Chairman described the property as fit only for demolition.
Sir Robert Le Masurier explained that the tribunal considered the only part of the property in reasonable condition to be the pigeon loft in the yard.
He said that one of the two bedrooms was absolutely unusable, and “an umbrella was needed to use the toilet”.
Sir Robert added that the tribunal’s findings had already been made known to the Public Health Department, who had warned the owner that a closure order would be issued unless improvements were made to the cottage.
2009 marked the last year that a rent tribunal was appointed.
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