Coronavirus update no. 15/2020 – Facilities granted to landlords and tenants of real estate

In the Official Gazette no. 435 of May 21, 2020 was published Law no. 62/2020 regarding the application of certain facilities for the payment of rent for the period related to the state of emergency.

 

 

The beneficiaries of this law are the tenants (art. 1), regardless of whether they are legal entities, individuals or practitioners of liberal professions, but also the owners of assets who accept the reduction of the rents (art. 2).

 

 

Regarding the tenants, the beneficiaries of this law are legal persons and practitioners of liberal professions who have disrupted their activity or had a decrease in their income/revenues by at least 15% in March 2020 compared to the average of the last calendar year, as well as the individuals who were economically affected, directly or indirectly, during the state of emergency.

 

The benefit provided by this normative act in favor of the tenants involves the payment of the rent by ANAF (the National Agency for Fiscal Administration), through its territorial bodies, and the recovery of the anticipated amounts by the agency from the tenants in equal installments, after the end of the period for which the payment was postponed. Before requesting the fiscal authority to pay the value of rent for the real estate, the tenant must have signed with the landlord an addendum in order to defer the payment of the rent.

 

The above mentioned addendum represents one of the documents that the tenant will have to attach to the payment request to be submitted with ANAF, together with the lease agreement and a document proving the tenant’s inability to pay the rent during the agreed deferral period with the landlord. Such document seems to be an additional condition to those mentioned in paragraph one of the same first article of the law and therefore we expect this to be clarified by the Implementing Rules which are expected to be published by June 5, 2020.

 

Shall be eligible only the tenants whose monthly rent, payable during the state of emergency period and in the following month, is at least equal to or less than the one due for February 2020 and its amount does not exceed 10.000 Lei per location for economic operators and 2.000 Lei for individuals.

 

The refund to ANAF of the amounts paid by the authority to the landlords will take place in equal installments, until December 31, 2020, without ANAF to collect interest and penalties for the amount advanced to the landlords.

 

The second article of the law grants tax concessions until December 31, 2020, to the landlords who accept to reduce the value of the rent of the real estate for the tenants: both for profit tax payers and for microenterprises, the tax base represented by the value of the rent of the real estate being reduced to 80% of its value if the rent is reduced by at least 20% compared to the value applicable in February 2020.

 

 

 

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