A court in berlin decided in October 2015 (1 L VG 317.15) that the demolition of rental housing in order to replace them by new condominiums does not violate in principle the “prohibition of misappropriation”. An owner of a property in Berlin-Wilmersdorf wanted to demolish an empty residential building and construct a new building, with 58 condominiums with two to four rooms and a size between 40 sqm and 96 sqm.
The District office Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf requested instead to get the old building repaired and to make the existing 15 homes habitable again. The 1st Chamber of the Administrative Court now stopped an official order from the district office.
The loss of old housing units has to be accepted, if at the same time adequate alternative housing units can be created.
The “misappropriation ban” should only prevent to remove existing housing from the Berlin housing market as it happens in case of conversion of buildings into condos.