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Your
Advocate
This
week your advocate is M. Moazzam Husain of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh.
His professional interests include civil
law, criminal law and constitutional law.
Q: I am owner of
a five storied house in Pallabi of Dhaka. I have let the flats to different
tenants. Most of the tenants are living in the flats for long time. Recently,
I let a flat to a businessman without any written document, only on verbal
agreement. It was agreed that he will pay me seven thousand taka per month
within first week as rent excluding gas and electricity bill. He paid
the amount accordingly for two month. But the tenant is not paying me
any rent for the last three month. I asked him to leave my flat, which
he denied. I want to evict him immediately as he is not a good man. How
can I do so? It should be mentioned that I have no deed of agreement with
the tenant. Please advice.
M. Kamaluddin Ahmed,
Pallabi, Dhaka.
Your Advocate: The problem you have
mentioned is one of the most common problems with the house owners in
Dhaka city and other urban areas of our country. Owning a house in Dhaka
city particularly, is no doubt incredible but no less bothering. People
having no land or houses in Dhaka city consider themselves less fortunate
and exploited by their landlords imposing arbitrary rent and other conditions.
On the other hand the landlords are often found to express their disgust
saying - maintaining a house now a days in Dhaka city is difficult and
cumbersome. Moreover, in these days of influx of people from heterogeneous
backgrounds seeking rental accommodations, collection of rent from the
tenants in regular order in many cases has turned into a challenge. In
any case, the whole thing seems to find better expression in the well-known
saying- 'the grass is greener on the other side'.
Back to your particular issue, you have five storied building in Pallabi.
You have rented out most of the flats quite some time now and the tenants
have been living therein paying their rents in regular order. Recently
a businessman has rented one of your flats on oral agreement with a condition,
amongst others, to pay his rent within the first week of the month the
rent is payable against. For the first two months he paid his rent accordingly.
But for the three months next following he did not pay anything. You asked
him to leave the flat but he refused to comply. It now appears to you
that your tenant is not a good man and the sooner he leaves the better.
In other words, you want to evict him from your flat.
A plain reading of the words of your query suggests that your mind often
recoils by a lurking fear that there is no written agreement with your
tenant. Well, there should be written contracts covering the tenancies
of the kind. That does not mean that absence of a written contract between
the landlord and tenant can weaken the position of a person as landlord.
At best an oral contract can saddle you with a bit heavier burden to prove
the terms of contract. Never mind, things will go by customs and practices.
As far as I know in Dhaka city tenancies of the kind is created in innumerable
cases by oral contract.
So far as eviction of your tenant is concerned, it is the only jurisdiction
of a competent court. You can do it through execution of a decree passed
by an appropriate court. By non-payment of the monthly rental your tenant
has turned into a defaulter, a disqualification which renders him liable
to be evicted from the rented premises. Now, in the circumstances, it
is advisable for you to consult a good civil lawyer without further lapse
of time and file a suit for ejectment and for arrears of rent against
your tenant having observed other legal formalities. The more you and
your lawyer would be up and doing in pursuing the suit the less time would
be taken in getting a decree.
Correction
The distribution of property as I have mentioned in my reply (published
on the 30th November) partially suffers from mistake. In the reply I have
mentioned that the daughters of your deceased brother will take 2/3rd
of the share of their father and rest 1/3rd will go to you and your sisters.
In giving my opinion I fell into error of legal interpretation. As per
terms of Section 4 of the Muslim Family Laws Ordinace,1961, the two daughters
of your deceased brother will get the entire share of their father to
the exclusion of others. For clarification it should be mentioned that
wife of your deceased brother shall be entitled to her husband's other
property as per law. I am sorry for the inconvenience. |
