Three times as many tenants in Stockholm reported usury rent last year compared to 2020. At the same time, twice as many housing brokerage companies have gone bankrupt. Now the company Unreasonable Rent warns that some housing brokers have set up systems to go bankrupt when there are many repayment claims.
Cimon knew even before he signed the lease that the rent was too high. The apartment on Södermalm in Stockholm cost SEK 12,000 a month. The reasonable rent was SEK 6,000.
– I needed a home there and then and had heard that you could get the money back afterwards, says Cimon.
In one year, he paid SEK 90,000 in excess rent.
– I won in the rent committee with the help of a lawyer from the Tenants’ Association. But now the company has staged loss-making deals with electronics to go home with the profit. So I haven’t gotten some 90,000 back, he says.
600 cases
Since last autumn, the company Orimlig Hyra has pursued 600 cases against intermediary companies for usurious rent. Alban Dautaj, CEO of Unreasonable Rent, estimates that 500 of these tenants will not get any money back.
– What usually happens is that the building, if they receive enough repayment demands from tenants, goes underground and disappears. They liquidate their companies or go bankrupt. Some money is very unusual for second-hand tenants to see again, says Alban Dautaj.
The main problem is unscrupulous property owners, say the companies Unreasonable Rent and Urban Rights. They hire brokerage companies to sublet the rentals, and thus can charge higher rents and avoid being liable for repayment.
Appeal to the politicians
The consequence is that sub-tenants cannot recover excess rents if the intermediary goes bankrupt.
– What is needed is for the politicians to decide that they also want the property owner to be financially responsible, says Alban Dautaj and continues:
– Once they have decided on it, only small adjustments are required in the tenancy law. Mainly in the refund rule. It can be directed both at property owners and at building companies.
Of the 90,000 kroner Cimon was entitled to by the rent board, he will only receive 2,000 kroner.
– This verdict that I have won in the rental board gives me nothing. It is my 90,000 kroner that had felt like a profit.