Is it illegal for VREIT and DDMP to have still not paid Q4 dividends?

In short: No. According to Article II Section 7 of the REIT Law, REITs have until the last day of the 5th month following the close of the fiscal year to declare dividends for that fiscal year.

Both VREIT [VREIT 3.01; 30% avgVol] and DDMP [DDMPR 1.36 1.4%; 264% avgVol] have fiscal years that ended on December 31, 2022, so they would have until May 31 to distribute the dividends associated with FY22, including dividends sourced from Q4 income.
 

MB BOTTOM-LINE

The clause says that REITs must “distribute” this income before May 31, so I doubt that it would be sufficient for VREIT or DDMPR to declare the dividend before the deadline but pay it sometime afterward.

It looks like the intent of the law is to have that money in our greasy little hands before May 31.

Based on the other REITs, the lag between dividend declaration and payment runs anywhere between 21 days and 50 days, so I’d expect these companies to be wrapping this up in the next couple of weeks.

If we still don’t see declarations by late in the first week of May, that’s when I’d start to raise some eyebrows.

Like all of them. 

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Merkado Barkada's opinions are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any particular stock. These daily articles are not updated with new information, so each investor must do his or her own due diligence before trading, as the facts and figures in each particular article may have changed.