By Konstantin Marrach
Breathe a sigh of relief at hundreds of tenants in Moabit!
In September, the residents of several houses on Lehrter Strasse, Wilsnacker Strasse and Alt-Moabit received the shocking news: their rent was to rise by a whopping 15 percent (!) as of November 1st.
The landlord is GSE gGmbH, which manages the state trust assets. So almost Berlin wanted to increase the rent!
The anger of the tenants was great, as was the outrage of many Berlin politicians. According to BZ information, several parties have complained to the landlord and to the Senate.
“The Senate is prepared to use the funds to which it is entitled in order to continue to work towards a socially acceptable rent policy at GSE,” said the responsible Senate administration.
And the intervention was successful! The tenants have now been informed by letter (the BZ is available) from the GSE that the planned rent increase is off the table for the time being. Reason: the “current, extraordinary situation”.
“I’m very happy,” says resident Andrea M. (62). “I myself would have had to pay 67 euros more. And nobody knows how high the additional costs will be. I was very concerned that I would no longer be able to pay the rental costs.”
There is also satisfaction in state politics. “It’s the right signal that rents aren’t going up any further,” says Niklas Schenker, housing policy spokesman for Die Linke. “Especially in the crisis, the rental burden must not increase any further.”
And Katrin Schmidberger, housing policy spokeswoman for the Greens, emphasizes: “If there are no increases for tenants in state-owned apartments, this must of course also apply to tenants of properties managed by a trustee.”
