Kuwait has one of the most comprehensive set of laws protecting Tenants & Renters, its very clear what you can and can’t do. You can only raise prices over a certain period and not above a certain percentage. You can set the rent price at any price when you initially rent it out to a new tent but then you are locked in and its clear process, the laws are meant to protect the Tenant be it those renting an apartment or a house.

But with laws it about how they are applied, there are still those who get away with things which are very frustrating. Recently some of the apartments were purchased by a new owner and it seems they wanted to raise the prices and make some new modifications. A lot of people have been living their over the past two decades and one of them is a friend. The new owner has been systematically getting people leave by some very shady tactics, they would cut the power every few days and blame the Ministry when there isn’t any power outages. They would cut the water hours on end and say they would send someone. They took away the guard who used to live on the ground floor and is sort of like utility guy in the building, so no one is downstairs either.

We tried to contact a few people to see what can be done to help our friend but they said it involves going to the police station then filing in court about these grievances. There isn’t a part of the Baladiya (Municipality) that handles the complaints and issues. I tried even talking to a few people I knew but they said its very hard to prove and even if you get the owner it will just get more difficult with them. I was getting very frustrated but it seems that you can cause them issues as well in court but its a very very long process.

The only thing that we could do is help the person we knew to find a better place for the same price to live in. What is sad is that they have lived there for over 20 years and suddenly to face this type of harassment is extremely frustrating, I was hoping that we could do more, but they said it simple that they want a place to live not to have to fight every day and not feel comfortable at home, I couldn’t blame them at all but I was frustrated.