Berlin Senator for Housing and Planning threatens rent cuts for every second apartment in BerlinAccording to a report in the newspaper Tagesspiegel, Berlin's building senator Katrin Lompscher (Linke) expects that half of Berlin's tenants will be able to reduce the rent to the permitted level with a so-called reduction request. For the first time, Senator Lompscher told the newspaper about concrete figures regarding rent ceilings. It refers to the Berlin tenant association, which brought maximum values between 5,97 euro and 9,69 euro net cold per square meter into the discussion. Lompscher estimates that up to 3,000 applications could be submitted per month and district. If Lompscher actually expects this figure, this would correspond to more than 430,000 requests for a resolution in the first year. Experts and lawyers give Lompscher's ideas no chance of success. Interventions in existing leases on the basis of subsequently introduced rent ceilings are an attempt for landlords and the real estate industry to turn the housing market into a legal-free zone. Lompscher is quoted in the Tagesspiegel as saying that the number of applications to be processed depends on the structure of the law.
The Senator of the Left Party is obviously more concerned with bureaucratic expenditure than with legal issues. The Senate decision on the key points of 18.06.2019 is to be completed by 31.08.2019 as a draft for the final drawing at the Senate Administration for Urban Development.
The responsible Senate office is currently determining the costs and bureaucratic expenditure for Lompscher's plans. After that, expert circles and associations will have the opportunity to review the plans by mid-September. The draft is to be submitted to the Senate for registration at the beginning of October, and the Senate resolution is already being sought for mid-October. The senator wants to get her project through the courts in a hurry. The announcement in the Berlin Law and Ordinance Gazette is to take place in January 2020, with immediate entry into force.