Red Tape Hot Box on skipping the rents
Although many private owners who lost properties just after World War II have finally been compensated for what was unjustly taken from them by the socialist government, many issues remain unsolved. But it seems this is just the beginning. Soon there will likely be many more such cases filed by citizens against the government. But financially, the most dangerous that might hit the government hard and consequently the tax payer is the case of tenant owners bound by the law of regulated rents, whereby set rent levels cannot be increased.
Of course, the owners can't constantly cover the cost of renovation out of their own pockets. But rent should be high enough not only to guarantee effective maintenance, but also for the owners to make a living from it. Moreover, two years ago the government passed a very 'humanitarian' law that prohibits affected owners from evicting any tenant from a rented apartment. What they didn't foresee (or maybe didn't want to see) was the fact that as a result of this law being passed, thousands of people have stopped paying their rent because they felt safeguarded against eviction. For private landlords, this new law had catastrophic consequences, while the tenants themselves end up losing in the long run too, as no renovations can get under way on their dwellings. On the other hand, it is impossible to liberalize the rents in tenement houses because many of the people who rent such apartments are extremely poor and are simply unable to pay high rents every month.
All in all, the government should have long ago found a way to curtail this vicious cycle instead of sweeping the problem under the carpet. It could have spent the time developing social housing while concurrently liberalizing rents. Thus, the people who lacked the money to pay rent for their apartment would have been moved to flats in new social housing schemes while the owners could have let to people who could actually pay the rent. By not doing so, the property rights of owners are restricted and thus violated, which may eventually lead to further indictments of our government, this time on the part of tenement owners.
Of course, the owners can't constantly cover the cost of renovation out of their own pockets. But rent should be high enough not only to guarantee effective maintenance, but also for the owners to make a living from it. Moreover, two years ago the government passed a very 'humanitarian' law that prohibits affected owners from evicting any tenant from a rented apartment. What they didn't foresee (or maybe didn't want to see) was the fact that as a result of this law being passed, thousands of people have stopped paying their rent because they felt safeguarded against eviction. For private landlords, this new law had catastrophic consequences, while the tenants themselves end up losing in the long run too, as no renovations can get under way on their dwellings. On the other hand, it is impossible to liberalize the rents in tenement houses because many of the people who rent such apartments are extremely poor and are simply unable to pay high rents every month.
All in all, the government should have long ago found a way to curtail this vicious cycle instead of sweeping the problem under the carpet. It could have spent the time developing social housing while concurrently liberalizing rents. Thus, the people who lacked the money to pay rent for their apartment would have been moved to flats in new social housing schemes while the owners could have let to people who could actually pay the rent. By not doing so, the property rights of owners are restricted and thus violated, which may eventually lead to further indictments of our government, this time on the part of tenement owners.
