Renting in Malta changed substantially in 2020, when the Private Residential Leases Act brought the whole market under one set of rules.
The short version: your lease must be in writing, it must contain specific things, and your landlord must register it. If those have not happened, the position is not what either of you assumed.
Before you sign anything
Your lease must be written and registered
A residential lease has to be in writing and registered with the Housing Authority. An unregistered lease leaves you in a worse position, not a more flexible one.
Ask for the registration. A landlord who resists is telling you something useful.
Dealing with offices
Deposit, agency fee and the first month
Expect to produce several months of money at once. Agency fees are normal here and are usually the equivalent of half a month or a month.
Get the deposit terms in the contract, including what it can be withheld for and when it comes back.
What a month costs
Aircon, damp and the summer bill
Look at the air conditioning in every room and ask what the summer electricity typically runs to. Both matter far more here than the decor does.
Check for damp on the north-facing walls, which is a genuine issue in older limestone buildings in winter.
Utilities
Registration is the landlord’s job
Since 1 January 2020, any lease for a primary residence must be registered by the owner with the Housing Authority within ten days of the lease starting. This is not optional and it is not the tenant’s responsibility. If the landlord does not do it, the tenant may register it themselves at the landlord’s cost. An unregistered lease is treated as null and void.
Ten days after you move in, ask your landlord for confirmation that the lease has been registered. It is a reasonable question and it costs nothing to ask. The answer tells you a lot about how the rest of the tenancy will go.
What the contract must contain
The law sets out what a written residential lease has to include. If any of these is missing, that is a problem with the contract rather than a detail to overlook.
Required in every residential lease
- The property
- Which property is being leased.
- Intended use
- What it has been agreed the property will be used for.
- The period
- How long the lease runs.
- Renewal
- Whether the lease can be renewed, and how.
- Rent
- The amount, and how it is to be paid.
- The deposit
- Any sum held as security for the tenant’s obligations.
- An inventory
- A record of the condition of the premises and of any furniture and appliances the landlord has supplied. This is the clause that decides deposit disputes, so it is worth doing carefully and photographing.
How the market works in practice
Most lettings go through agents. The agency fee is customarily equivalent to a period of rent, usually shared or borne by one side depending on the agreement. Deposits of one month are normal. Furnished is the default rather than the exception, and long unfurnished lets are comparatively rare.
Rents move sharply with the season and with location. Winter lets from roughly November to March cost a fraction of the summer rate, which is covered under long stays. Sliema, St Julian’s and Valletta are the most expensive; the south and Gozo considerably less.
Whether utilities are billed at the residential rate or passed on at a mark-up, which is a common and expensive difference. Whether the property has real heating, because Maltese buildings are cold and damp in January. And what is happening on the neighbouring plot, because construction is constant and a quiet flat can stop being one.
Residential lettings are governed by the Private Residential Leases Act, Chapter 604 of the Laws of Malta, and administered by the Housing Authority. Registration is done online through the government service portal.