Another e-mail, same story.

We are the residents of Muscat Oasis Residents in Boucher. After the abnormal weather conditions that hit Oman in June 2007, the management in the compound started to increase rents for new renewals by at least 45%. After the cabinet decision to put the 15% cap on rents, the management just went crazy! They started to issue evacuation notice to tenants whom their contract is about to expire.

The reason for evacuation is “refurbishment”. Just to show that this is a false reason, some of the tenants got a letter of increasing the rent on 20th Sep 2007, and then they got the evacuation letter on 23rd Sep 2007. We have copies of these letters that was sent to many people. This might seem to be a specific issue, but if we look into it, we will find that many landlords will use such play in order to increase rents.

Landlord: Your rent has been increased by 50 percent from next month.

Tenant: Sorry, you can’t do it. There is a government cap of 15 percent on rents now.

Landlord: Ok, no problem. I am giving you three months notice as I am planning to take up major renovation work.

Tenant: &!@$^%?? (speechless)

Arghhhhhhhh!