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  • A cap on rents in Berlin: will it really work?

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A cap on rents in Berlin: will it really work?

Protest against rising rents, people holding placards.
Berliners have had plenty of opportunities to protest rising rents in the past few months. Now the senate has decided to put a cap on rents. But will it work?

Berlin’s city government has decided to put a cap on rents for five years. Will it really offer respite in this overheated property market? We asked Christoph Albrecht, a lawyer specialised on rental laws and consultant to the Mieterschutzbund Berlin.

“The cap on rents is a political issue, a sign from the Senate that they are doing something to secure social peace in the city. Because that is currently threatened by the rising rents. The large housing corporations such as Deutsche Wohnen, on the other hand, have a clear goal: maximising profit. That’s obvious, we live in a capitalist system. But if a company such as McDonalds maximises its profits, and people can’t afford the burgers, that’s not as dangerous for social peace as when people can’t afford the roof over their heads.

Whether the cap will withstand the courts is another question. Landlords will challenge the ruling, of course, just as they did with the Mietpreisbremse (rent control). That case has been in the Federal Constitutional Court for years, and it’s going to be the same with the regulation regarding the cap on rents.”

More on this over at Deutsche Welle or The Guardian.

Translated by Aida Baghernejad

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