Immediate steps should be taken to register commercial lease agreements on the EJAR lease registration portal (administered under the Ministry of Housing), further to a recent announcement by the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs that it will no longer renew commercial activity licenses for businesses after 4 October 2020 unless their commercial lease is registered.
Previous Council of Ministers resolutions had made it compulsory for real estate brokers to register all residential and commercial leases via the EJAR portal, but commercial landlords and tenants directly contracting with each other would not have previously been obliged to register their lease agreements.
This move appears to be a drive towards greater transparency in the rights and obligations attached to real estate, to further increase confidence in the real estate market. The ultimate solution to such transparency efforts is a comprehensive real estate registration regime, which is currently being progressed by various government authorities.
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