Re:Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters
by sievebrain on Sunday June 05, 2016 @04:41PM
(#11843009)
I've lived in Switzerland for a decade. My rents have never gone up. They have gone down once though, because the law here mandates tying of rent to interest rates and when they are lowered, you can write to your landlord and demand a reduction.
Unfortunately there are caveats. Last time I tried that, my landlord claimed that my rent was already lower than the market average for my area and thus I didn't qualify for the reduction.
In the short term, the renter makes out, because the owner has to assume taxes and maintenance, but over the long term, the existing mortgage doesn't increase while rent does and the property owner starts to cover those costs and then starts to make money off of the property. Once the mortgage is paid off, the rental money is pure profit.