Plans to extend rent control will hit the less-well-off, an MP and lawyer warned yesterday.

And UBP backbencher Trevor Moniz predicted the rent control system would mean that people least able to cope with bureacracy would be bogged down in a red tape nightmare.

He added the increase in the rent control yardstick would also penalise fair landlords -- while those who charged steep rents would escape.

And Mr. Moniz called on Government to reconsider proposals to extend the rent watchdog system by around 50 percent -- more than 5,000 properties.

He said: "A lot of people put a little apartment on their house to pay their mortgage -- others are elderly people who depend on their rents to live.'' He was speaking after Health and Social Services Minister Nelson Bascome tabled an amendment to the current law, which increases the Annual Rental Value (ARV) rating for rent control from $9,900 to $16,200.

That move came after the ARV system -- based on the annual rental value of properties -- was reviewed for the first time in a decade, leading Mr. Bascome to look at changes in the rent control system to bring it into line with the new levels, the first change in a decade.

Mr. Moniz said: "One of the problems is that it becomes a very technical system.

"And, by and large, the people who lose out are the less well-educated landlords, particularly the elderly because they don't understand the technicalities of this.'' Mr. Moniz explained smart lawyers could overturn rent increases on legal points like lack of proper notice or notice without set times.

He said: "There is no mechanism in the Act for retroactive approval for a rent increase which was, nonetheless, a perfectly reasonable increase.

"There is no system to provide justice -- it's a system designed for civil servants and bureaucrats.'' Mr. Moniz said the proposed abolition of rent control exemptions for properties built after June, 1983, would massively increase the number of houses and apartments which fall under the regulations.

He added that could mean the less-than-10,000 properties currently rent-controlled was set to rise to more than 16,000 -- which would mean even more problems with bureaucracy.

Mr. Moniz stressed that he was sympathetic to rent control to protect tenants from exploitation by greedy landlords.

But he added: "The Minister should either reconsider this altogether, because we really should be tackling the housing shortage by increasing the supply of housing.

"If he's going to go ahead, we have to have something built into the system which will allow for fairness.'' And he predicted that those who charged reasonable rent -- and ended up on the low side of the ARVs -- would be penalised, while grasping landlords who charged "outrageous'' rents would fall on the other side of the rent control cut-off.

Mr. Moniz said: "If this is what's happening, it's totally wrong -- nice guys are being penalised and rip-off artists are being rewarded.'' And he added: "I would certainly encourage everyone to go and check the list and call or write to their MP and complain.

"This will cause a lot of surprises and it will hit the lower-income people.

"It's not hitting the wealthy, it's hitting the man in the street.'' Mr. Bascome told the House of Assembly two weeks ago that rent control was seen as a "temporary measure'' and that the real solution was more housing.

But Mr. Moniz said: "This measure is not a step to getting rid of rent control -- it's substantially increasing it.''