Protecting tenants without punishing property

• Why the proposed Protection of Occupants Bill, 2025 needs rethinking

The proposed Protection of Occupants Bill, 2025 is clearly well-intentioned. Preventing harassment and unlawful eviction is a legitimate public objective. Yet good intentions do not always produce good law. If enacted in its present form, this Bill risks being deeply counter-productive, undermining both the rental market and the very tenants it seeks to protect.

Sri Lanka is no longer living in the 1972 era of the Rent Act and statutory tenancy. After decades of rigid controls and market distortions, the country has only recently begun to move toward a modern, balanced framework that respects contractual autonomy, economic realities, and judicial oversight. The Recovery of Possession of Premises Given on Lease Act. No. 1 of 2023 was a long-awaited step in that direction. Any new law that rolls back these reforms must be approached with caution.

Consider a scenario that is neither hypothetical nor rare. A tenant lawfully enters a condominium unit under a written lease. Within months, the tenant defaults on rent, fails to pay condominium management corporation charges, and neglects utility bills. Acting within their legal powers, the management corporation and service providers disconnect services. Under the proposed Protection of Occupants Bill, 2025, the landlord may nevertheless be compelled to restore utilities and maintain the tenant at his own expense while court proceedings run their course. In effect, the law obliges the property owner to finance a tenant who is in clear contractual default. This is not protection of occupation; it is protection of non-compliance.

Tenant protection cannot be divorced from tenant responsibility. No modern legal system can function rationally where rent need not be paid, common expenses may be ignored, and utilities left unpaid, yet statutory protection continues uninterrupted. Such a framework creates moral hazard, encouraging strategic default and abuse of legal safeguards.

The problem is particularly acute in condominium living, which is not a simple bilateral relationship between landlord and tenant. Condominium occupancy involves management corporations, shared services, and statutory obligations to other unit owners. When a tenant defaults, the consequences extend beyond the landlord. Transferring the entire financial and legal burden onto the property owner, while insulating the defaulting tenant, is neither fair nor sustainable.

More fundamentally, the proposed Bill cuts across the carefully calibrated framework introduced by the Recovery of Possession of Premises Given on Lease Act. No. 1 of 2023. That Act already balances lawful occupation with the right of a landlord to recover possession in cases of default, subject to due process and judicial supervision. The new draft law introduces overlapping remedies, interim protections without testing compliance, and uncertainty that undermines enforcement confidence and legal coherence.

The economic consequences are predictable. Faced with increased risk, prolonged litigation, and diminished control over their property, rational landlords will respond rationally. Many will withdraw their properties from the leasing market altogether. Others will demand higher deposits or resort to informal arrangements. Rental supply will contract, prices will rise, and tenants, especially young families and middle-income earners, will find it increasingly difficult to secure affordable housing.

What makes this outcome particularly troubling is that it is entirely avoidable. The problem does not require a new statutory regime. It can be addressed through a simple and sensible amendment to Act No. 1 of 2023. Statutory protection should be conditional upon compliance. Before an occupant is entitled to protection, there should be a clear requirement that rent is paid or deposited in court, utility bills are settled, and condominium management charges are cleared. No payment, no protection.

Such a safeguard would not weaken tenant protection. It would strengthen it by restoring balance, preserving contractual integrity, and maintaining confidence in the rental market.

The Protection of Occupants Bill, 2025 may be well-meaning, but in its current form it risks producing the opposite of its intended effect. By discouraging landlords from leasing their properties, it may ultimately make housing scarcer and less affordable for tenants. Sri Lanka cannot afford to retreat into outdated statutory tenancy models under the guise of reform. We must allow commerce to evolve, respect the autonomy of contracting parties, and build upon, rather than dismantle, the hard-won reforms already achieved.

I hope the authorities will take careful note of these concerns and undertake the necessary refinements before lasting economic and legal damage is done.