To Live and Buy in Berlin

A Facebook post making the rounds on forums in eastern Europe criticized Berlin’s social conservation laws restricting renovations apartment buyers can make

So, imagine that you’ve just found the Berlin version of a magical unicorn – an empty,1 affordable apartment for sale inside the city. Would you spend hundreds of thousands of Euros to buy it if you knew that you wouldn’t be allowed to renovate the bathroom or install a new kitchen?

If you buy in one of the 78 designated social conservation areas of the German capital, those are just a few of many restrictions on what you would be allowed to do with your property.

The Soziale Erhaltungsgebiete (better known by the colloquial term ‘milieuschutz‘ or ‘environment protection’) are designated districts within each of the city’s 12 boroughs that have been deemed most at-risk of becoming unaffordable to the average district resident.

Residential property within a designated milieuschutz area is subject to limitations on what renovations or changes can be made, as well as whether and how the property can be sold in the future.

A recent social media post that went viral on some European property f…