Jelgava municipal tenants must sign fixed-term lease contracts by year's end
Jelgava's municipality is urging tenants of municipal apartments with open-ended or undated lease agreements to sign new fixed-term contracts by December 31. The requirement stems from a law in force since 2021.
The Jelgava municipality's Property Department has announced that tenants of municipal housing whose current lease agreements have no specified term, or were signed for an indefinite period, must arrange new fixed-term contracts by December 31 this year.
Legal background
The requirement follows from the Residential Tenancy Law, which has required lease agreements to be signed for a fixed term since 2021. Under the law's transitional provisions, agreements signed before April 30, 2021 that remain in effect under the new regulation must be brought into compliance by the end of 2026.
For municipally owned apartments, the permitted lease duration is set by Jelgava's binding regulations, which allow contracts of up to 10 years. If an existing agreement lacks a specified term or exceeds 10 years, a new fixed-term contract must be concluded. To initiate this, tenants must submit an application to the municipality.
How the process works
Decisions on signing, amending, or refusing a lease agreement are made by the Jelgava municipality's Housing Commission. If the decision is favorable, the new contract is to be signed within one month. If the tenant and the municipality cannot agree on amendments, the dispute may be resolved in court.
The municipality is encouraging tenants not to postpone the matter until year's end, but instead to check the status of their lease and gather the required documents in advance.
The Property Department also noted that tenants who have rented their municipal apartment since before January 1, 2002, may, under certain conditions, be entitled to apply to purchase that apartment from the municipality.
