$3M in unpaid rent forces HDC to sell or lease malls

The Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) is con­sid­er­ing sell­ing or leas­ing its sev­en malls across Trinidad af­ter rack­ing up more than $3.1 mil­lion in un­paid rent.

HDC’s chair­man Feeroz Khan, in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia last Fri­day, said the cor­po­ra­tion spends $10 mil­lion a year in main­te­nance fees to up­keep and safe­guard the malls, but HDC on­ly re­ceives an in­come of $1 mil­lion from its ten­ants in rent. The ten­ants’ month­ly rents range be­tween $1,000 and $2,100. These malls have over 100 ten­ants.

Khan said it was a case of the can­dle cost­ing more than the fu­ner­al.