Germany May Make Property Sales Harder After Berlin Rent Freeze

Germany’s construction minister, Horst Seehofer, wants to help protect tenants by making it more difficult to convert rental apartments into condominiums, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.

Seehofer is proposing to introduce a threshold of at least two-thirds of the flats in an apartment building having to be sold to tenants or their family members for any conversion plan to gain government approval, the newspaper said. Tenants in Germany have a right of first refusal if an apartment building is divided into condominiums.