Elif Eralp, the new Linke Party leader in Berlin....is trying to form a coalition centering around a pledge to 'seize' ownership of 200,000 apartments to be city-property (instead of commercial property rentals)....meaning the city can control the rent price.
The process is called.....Enteignung / Enteignungsverfahren (expropriation under Art. 14 GG and the Building Code / BauGB). In simple-talk....a city or public authority takes specific properties for a concrete public purpose (it could be a building, a school, a private street).
The key here....there's compensation required.
If you said you were seizing/expropriating....six buildings (20 apartments in each) worth a cost of 100 million Euro....you can perform the act, but your lawyers are going to present the bill (validated by a court) for 100 million Euro. Where this money comes from? Well....your budget, or you borrow the money.
So when you talk about 200,000 apartments....you are probably discussing about 150-plus buildings, and you need to start calculating a necessity for five to ten billion Euro.
Would the German federal gov't (Merz and company)...give them even a quarter of that amount? NO.
Does anyone within the Linke group fully understand expropriation? I have my personal doubts.
Do Linke-voters understand expropriation? I seriously doubt it.
My personal belief....they (the Linke-led city council) might rig up some property tax, and have the money to 'grab' two or three apartment buildings per year (figure each in 1-million Euro each)...with the buildings being in fix-it-up condition. So they'd have to find another 5-million for renovation of the structures.
The key problem here? Well....the SPD Party wants to be a partner in the coalition, but they probably won't sign up for expropriation efforts.
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