E-briefing: August 2020 must-knows for commercial landlords- Keeping abreast with recent amendments to the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act and its (Rental and Related Measures) Regulations 2020

Introduction

1. This is an update to our earlier article of 10 April 2020 summarising the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act[1] (“Act”) for commercial landlords[2].

2. The Act was passed on 7 April 2020. On 5 June 2020, Parliament passed various amendments to the Act, with many of the key amendments coming into force on 31 July 2020[3]. On 30 July 2020, the Minister amended the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) (Temporary Relief for Inability to Perform Contracts) Regulations 2020[4] (“TRC Regulations”)[5], and concurrently issued the fresh COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) (Rental and Related Measures) Regulations 2020[6] (“RRM Regulations”).

3. With the above changes, this article seeks to update on the following 2 categories of amendments to the law relevant to commercial landlords:

• Rental relief framework for Small and Medium Enterprises (“SMEs”) and Non-Profit Organisations (“NPOs”), including Rental Relief, Additional Rental Relief, automatic interim moratorium on recovery of rent pending issuance of notice of cash grant, application for Assessor’s Determination, statutory repayment schedule, and restriction on landlord’s draw down of security deposit; and
• Other general amendments relating to lease or licence of non-residential immovable property (e.g. expanded list of prohibited actions, inapplicability of the limit to late payment interest or other charge, and relief from holding over).

4. The comprehensive article is available here.