Tenants who fail to pay rent from 120 business premises will have to vacate

Amendments to the Law on Lease of Business Buildings and Premises, adopted at the 7th session of the Sarajevo Canton Assembly held on October 7, 2015, enable municipalities as lessors of business premises to more quickly resolve problems they have with tenants of their business premises who do not pay lease fees, reports the Patria News Agency.

Namely, due to court disputes over rent collection, which most often last for many years, municipalities were unable to regain possession of these premises until the court proceedings were concluded.

Considering that the municipal budget has been deprived of significant revenue for years because of this, the Centar Sarajevo Municipal Council has repeatedly sent initiatives to the Sarajevo Canton Assembly to amend the Law on Lease of Business Buildings and Premises, which has now been done.

The amendments to the aforementioned law, which were adopted yesterday under an expedited procedure, stipulate that if a tenant does not pay rent for a business premises and a court proceeding is underway for the collection of debt for four or more unpaid lease payments, the lessor has the right to terminate the lease agreement, i.e., to evict from the municipal business premises with the assistance of the competent authorities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Sarajevo Canton even before a court verdict.

The competent municipal service will order the tenant to vacate the municipal business premises within eight days by decision. A significant novelty is that an appeal against the decision does not postpone its execution, and if the tenant does not hand over the vacated business premises within that period, the lessor will carry out the eviction procedure themselves.

According to Fahrudin Kurtović, assistant to the mayor of the Centar Municipality, the amendments to the Law are very significant because they will enable the Municipality to manage its business premises and generate higher revenue for the budget from lease agreements.

-The Centar Municipality has 530 business premises. Currently, 380 municipal business premises are in use with regular rent payments, while court disputes are ongoing for about 120 due to non-payment of rent. Based on the lease of business premises, the planned revenue for the Centar Municipality budget this year is 3 million and 850 thousand marks, said Kurtović, adding that the mentioned law comes into effect upon its publication in the Official Gazette of Sarajevo Canton, and the Decision on Leasing Business Buildings and Premises of the Centar Municipality will be harmonized with the adopted amendments to the cantonal law, it was announced from the Centar Municipality.