Covid-19: Singapore plans new law to ensure landlords pass property tax rebates on to tenants

IT may soon be compulsory for property owners to pass the government-granted property tax rebates on to tenants, under a new legislation to be introduced in Parliament next week.

This comes as landlords and tenants have tussled over what the latter perceives as landlords dragging their feet in passing on savings from property tax rebates meant to help them cope with the impact of Covid-19. Government agencies are also understood to have been mediating between the two parties.

In Budget 2020 and the recent Resilience Budget, the government had announced a property tax rebate of up to 100 per cent for non-residential properties, for the tax payable in 2020. Since then, property owners have passed the rebates on to tenants; some have even reduced rental further than what the rebates amount to.

However, the government has also received feedback that other property owners have not yet passed the rebate on to their tenants, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday.

Hence, the new legislation - if approved in Parliament - will ensure that property owners pass on to their tenants the full amount of property tax rebate received for each property tax account that is attributable to the tenanted property.

It will also ensure that the rebate is passed on "in a timely manner" and prevent property owners from imposing conditions when passing on the rebate.

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A valuation review panel will settle disputes between the property owner and the tenant. Property owners who fail to adhere to the law "without reasonable excuse", will be guilty of an offence.

The new legislation will be introduced at the next sitting of Parliament, which will be on or about April 7.

Earlier this week, Minister for Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing had alluded to the difficulty of the government to intervene in the situation.

At the sidelines of a visit to Swensen's, where he met the senior management of the restaurant chain's parent company ABR Holdings, he had told media: "Different landlords have different relationships with their tenants, they have different rental models, they have different profit-sharing schemes... It's not so easy for the government to intervene and say that everyone should follow this particular formula."

And while Enterprise Singapore and other economic agencies have been trying to bring tenants and landlords together to work things out, the minister added, both parties must see each other as "long-term partners".