Landlords at the St Augustine Campus of University of the West Indies have started raising rents following Government’s announcement of increased property taxes. So said chairman of the Off-Campus Renters Association (OCRA), Devendra Heeraman.

In a statement, Heeraman said since the Budget statement was read a month ago, landlords around the UWI Campus have started raising their monthly rental fee to UWI students. Heeraman said: “In some cases, some of the landlords raised their rents by the next week. This is highly immoral and unethical since the proposed increase in property taxes will only come into effect, if at all, from next year.”

He added: “OCRA strongly condemns this illegal act by such unscrupulous landlords since it can successfully be argued in any court of law that this is a breach of contract law by the landlord with the UWI students who both entered into an agreement to provide accommodation in exchange for a specific rents for a specific period of one year and in some instances, two.” He predicted that soon more and more landlords will further increase their rents next year, once the taxes are put into effect. Already, some students of UWI pay as much as $3,000 a month to stay in apartments outside of the campus, he said.