Landlords may have scored a pyrrhic victory, with suggestions activists could move to expropriate empty flats

The housing question is one of the central issues of our time, and events last week in Berlin underscored what’s at stake. In a much-anticipated ruling, Germany’s constitutional court in Karlsruhe ruled that Berlin’s Mietendeckel or rent cap was unconstitutional, and therefore null and void. The product of years of concerted organising by housing movements and leftwing parties in the city, the rent cap is wildly popular with Berlin’s tenants, who make up three-quarters of the city’s households. But it was hated by landlords, real-estate investors and members of Germany’s conservative political parties. The lawsuit against the cap was filed by 284 parliamentary members of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU), and the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP).

Berlin’s rent cap was part of a new law passed by the city in January 2020. The cap prevented owners of flats built before 2014 charging more than what had been agreed in June 2019. It also stipulated that any rents that were 20% in excess of acceptable levels should be reduced, varying according to location and quality. Landlords who did not comply with the new law faced heavy fines. The policy was to be in place for five years. New-builds were exempt.