The Ethiopian Government Housing Agency cancelled the contracts of 643 tenants in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia who subleased their rental property to third parties against their contract with the Agency.
The Agency cancelled the contracts following a directive issued in October penalizing tenants who have sublet commercial properties owned by the government. The directive also penalized tenants who were utilizing residential property for commercial purposes.
The agency will enter into new contractual agreements at modified rates with third parties who had subleased the space. Tenants who parceled their property into smaller sections will only be to retain ownership of any sections that they were making use of themselves. Their rates will be modified according to the agreements reached with the former third party renters.445 rental properties in breech of the conditions set out in the directive were discovered by the Merkato branch of the Housing Agency alone. The contracts of 442 tenants were cancelled with the remaining three properties tied up in court proceedings.
The agency has drawn up new contracts after setting new rates for 412 of the 442 properties.
A further 68 contracts were cancelled by the Kirkos branch the Piassa branch of the hosuing agency cancelled 52 contracts.
57 properties parceled into 101 sections were discovered by the Mexico branch which cancelled a total of 81 contracts.
The agency has lodged 400 complaints contesting cancelled contracts as per the system established by the directive.
Source: Addis Fortune
