Legal regulations

On 15.4.2021, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the law on the Berlin rent cap, which has been in force since 2020, null and void. According to the Federal Constitutional Court’s reasoning, it is not the states but the federal government that is responsible for statutory regulation.

Rent controls, protection against dismissal and preservation statutes: Germany has a relatively high level of regulation compared with the rest of Europe. This refers not only to the “social” rental housing market, with a share of around 1.14 million apartments, but also to the “free” market, with a volume of around 20 million units. The protection of tenants, even in “free” tenancies, has been successively extended over the years by a large number of laws.