Per the current laws governing the rent, ACT 1963, tenants are to only pay between one to six months advance rent.
The Minister for Works and Housing, Samuel Atta-Akyea has said tenants should report landlords who try to take more than a year's rent advance from them.
He said such an action will lead to actions that will curb unnecessary rent charges across the country.
“It is you the citizen of Ghana, very conscious that we must enforce laws for the sanity of the nation, who will go and alert the police that landlord X is trying to violate the law and should be arrested. And that is when the law will be meaningful", he said.
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Per the current laws governing the rent, ACT 1963, tenants are to only pay between one to six months advance rent.
But the lack of enforcement has seen some landlords demand more than 12 months as a rent down payment, exceeding the six-month ceiling.
Akyea, who is the Member of Parliament for Abuakwa South also said, "Why are you going to squeeze 36 months of rent advance for the person? If you condone it, the impunity gains ground, and that is where we are".
The Rent Control Office has indicated that Government is putting together a new rent Bill.
The Bill, which will be laid before Parliament soon if approved, will require tenants pay between one month to a year’s rent advance.
“The rent advance at the moment is supposed to be six months and the new law hoping to be passed sooner or later is actually giving us a year. We have prepared the one year advance supposed to be paid by tenants. It starts from one month to one year,” the Chief Rent Control Officer at the Rent Control Department, Twum Ampofo noted.