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Panel building in Berlin-Friedrichshain: rent cover "not obviously unconstitutional"
Photo: Wolfgang Kumm / DPA
The Berlin district authorities may temporarily prohibit landlords from raising rent on the basis of the rent cap.
The Berlin Administrative Court has rejected an urgent application from a housing company that had asked a resident to agree to a rent increase.
The higher rent should only be paid after the Federal Constitutional Court has decided on the rent cap.
This is expected later this year.
In the specific case, the tenant had not agreed to the rent increase.
Therefore, the housing company first moved to the local court.
This has not yet made a decision.
In the meantime, the district office of Pankow forbade the company to request consent to the rent increase.
The company sued against this and lodged an urgent application with the administrative court.
This now decided that the district office had acted lawfully.
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The Berlin Administrative Court justified its decision by stating that the Mietendeckel Act, although controversial in the case law of the civil courts and in legal literature, is not obviously unconstitutional and should therefore be applied.
An appeal against the decision is possible at the Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg.
The legal situation remains confusing overall: The Berlin regional court considers the law to be formally unconstitutional.
This question will only be finally clarified by the Federal Constitutional Court.
Since February 2020, rents in Berlin for 1.5 million apartments have been frozen at the level of June 2019.
From the year after next, they may increase by a maximum of 1.3 percent annually.
ime / dpa-AFX / AFP
