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Mietshäuser Syndikat

Coordinates: 47°59′36″N 7°50′27″E / 47.993277°N 7.840812°E / 47.993277; 7.840812
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mietshäuser Syndikat
Company typeGmbH (~LLC)
IndustryProperty
Founded1999
Headquarters
Freiburg
,
Germany
Number of locations
191
Area served
Germany
Websitewww.syndikat.org/en/

The Mietshäuser Syndikat (lit. 'apartment-house syndicate', abbreviated to MHS) is a cooperative, non-commercial joint venture in Germany that helps communities acquire long-term affordable living space via a legal, collective property arrangement. As of June 2024, there are 191 Hausprojekte (intentional communities of a roughly housing cooperative form) within the MHS, with 22 further initiatives looking for suitable property.[1]

Development

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Synapse, newspaper of the Mietshãuser Syndikat, Nr. 7 2011

The MHS was founded in 1992 in Freiburg im Breisgau by former squatters.[2] As of September 2022, there are 177 MHS projects with over 3,800 residents and over 150,000 m2 of living space collectively: 17 accepted initiatives look for suitable property.[1] The smallest object is a family house for 4[3] and the biggest is a former barracks of 4 buildings for 265.[4] A regional coordination group for Tübingen was grounded in 2007, with further coordination groups for Bayern, Berlin-Brandenburg, Bremen, Dresden, Hamburg, Gießen, Leipzig, Marburg and Nordrhein-Westfalen developing since then.[5]

After a 5-year break, Synapse, the newspaper of the MHS resumed print in 2011. The first issue was published in 2001.[citation needed]

Currently the MHS is working towards founding a 'syndicate foundation' (Syndikatstiftung).[6]

General structure

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A group of people wishing to create a Hausprojekt within the MHS first form a legal association for their future living collective called a Hausverein (lit. 'House association') using the Verein form (abbreviated e. V.)[7]: 349  This provides a legal basis for their collective organization and financing and is a requirement for joining the MHS. Further requirements include accepting a legal obligation to contribute to the MHS solidarity fund and a commitment to provide mutual aid to other Hausprojekte in future. With free assistance from the MHS, the Hausverein creates a general concept including financial plan before applying for membership to the MHS.[8]: 1 [9]: 1 

Diagram of the entities and their relationships within the MHS
Artistic depiction of the MHS structure (Helfrich/Bollier 2019)[10]

The MHS has two legal entities, an association (e. V.) and an LLC (GmbH). The association is the sole shareholder of the LLC; it is only possible to join the association. Members of the MHS include every accepted Hausverein, other associations and private individuals.[8]: 1  The MHS holds general assemblies 3 or 4 times a year at which point Hausprojekte and their respective Hausvereine are considered for membership.[9]: 1  Decisions are made by consensus.[7]: 355 

Once a Hausverein is accepted into the MHS, a Haus GmbH (lit. 'House LLC') is created. The Haus GmbH owns the future property the living collective will inhabit and effectively ensures it will not be reprivatized. The foundation of the GmbH requires €25,000 starting capital, of which ~49% is attributed to the MHS (GmbH) and 51% to the Hausverein. The statute of the Haus GmbH gives the Hausverein near total autonomy on the use and development of the house, with the MHS having its voting rights limited to decisions affecting the sale or legal transfer of the property, or changes to the Haus GmbH articles of organization. On such topics, where both shareholders can vote, a majority is required and despite the difference in initial contribution, the MHS and Hausverein each have one, equal vote. This means both parties must mutually consent: either party can veto, and the MHS make clear they will veto any attempt at privatization.[11]: 1 [7]: 350 [8]: 1 

Once the Haus GmbH is established, it raises money with direct loans from Hausverein members, their families and friends, and the MHS, with the rest coming from bank mortgage loans. As of November 2020, 170 million euros was tied up in MHS projects, with ~54% being bank loans, ~39% being direct loans and ~7 % being starting capital.[12]

Reception

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Sustainability and sufficiency

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Silke Helfrich and David Bollier consider the MHS an exemplary way of defending collective rights.[13] An academic article claimed it is a means to reduce poverty and social inequality,[14] supported by a report from BTU Cottbus which states that MHS projects pay significantly less rent than average.[15]

For Nir Barak, the projects are an expression of a broadly applied citizen engagement.[16] Enrico Schönberg sees the potential for mechanisms in the MHS concept to be transferred into the societal realm.[17]

Judith Very finds the MHS to be a functioning combination of anarchist, direct democratic and Marxist approaches that has situated itself alongside the dominant perception of a "uniform capitalism".[18] Bettina Barthel describes the use of the limited company by the MHS to decommercialize living space as "legal hacking".[19] The MHS is for Ivo Balmer and Tobias Benet a success model.[20]

Kenton Card argues for the consideration of state funding to escalate the spread of the model.[21] The Stadtbodenstiftung Berlin (lit. 'City land foundation Berlin'), a Community Land Trust, describes the MHS as being ideologically aligned.[22]

Risks for investors

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There are risks for possibles investors: to finance the projects, a significant deposit is necessary which the Hausvereine and Haus-GmbH typically don't have. Banks require a deposit as additional security when issuing mortgages. The Haus-GmbH gather the required money from private individuals as deliberately low-interest, subordinated loans.[23] In the case of Haus-GmbH insolvency, these private loans are paid back secondarily after the bank loans, thus they carry risk for their entire duration. The MHS informs about one case of insolvency in 2010 on its homepage, and advises distributing larger loans across multiple projects to reduce risk.[24] Stiftung Warentest, a German consumer organisation, recommended in one publication to only invest manageable sums of money, and that investment is not suited for purely financial reasons due to the risk relative to (low) returns.[25]

Attacks on the project

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Two attempted arson attacks were targeted against a MHS project on Jagowstraße 15 in Berlin Spandau within two weeks in 2021. Due to previously noticed Nazi-related graffiti, state security and the criminal court of Berlin took up the investigation.[26][27] A year later, a structure in the backyard of another project in Berlin, Grünberger Straße 73 was burnt down.[28] In Hesse, several projects were the target of arson attacks, too.[29]

Influence

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Diagram showing MHS, other syndicates and adjacents in continental Europe, 2021

Le Clip was founded in 2010 to adapt the MHS model for people in France.[30][31]

Genossenschaft Mietshäuser MHS (lit. 'Cooperative rental apartment syndicate') was founded in 2014 in Switzerland.[30] After discussing with similar initiatives in Switzerland, they chose to use the Genossenschaft (Cooperative) form in their model instead of the GmbH (LLC) to relate to a tradition of cooperatives in their country since the LLC offered no additional advantages in Switzerland.[32]

HabiTAT was also founded in 2014 in Austria, transferring the legal structure of the MHS into the Austrian legal frame.[33][30][34]

Sdílené domy (lit. 'Shared Houses') was founded in 2015 as a MHS inspired organization for the Czech Republic.[35][30]

VrijCoop (lit. 'Free coop') was founded in 2017 in the Netherlands, translating the MHS model to the Dutch situation.[36][30] In place of the GmbH (LLC), VrijCoop uses the vereniging (association).[37]

Radical Routes, a secondary cooperative networking British housing cooperatives, published a report in 2014 reflecting on weaknesses within their model such as carpet bagging where established co-ops significantly reduce their rent or, rarely, sell their property for private gain. In it they consider the Mietshäuser Syndikat model to have provably solved that issue.[38]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Projekte in Deutschland – Mietshäuser Syndikat". www.syndikat.org (in German). Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  2. ^ "Germany's Collective Alternative to the Private Housing Swindle". tribunemag.co.uk. Retrieved 9 September 2022. The idea of the syndicate was born among those who occupied an abandoned machine production factory in Freiburg im Breisgau, another university town near the French border, in the 1980s.
  3. ^ "Rennerstraße – Mietshäuser Syndikat" (in German). Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  4. ^ "SUSI Freiburg – Mietshäuser Syndikat". www.syndikat.org (in German). Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  5. ^ Regionale Beratung und Koordination www.syndikat.org, accessed 7 August 2023
  6. ^ "Syndikatstiftung | stiftet Räume". Syndikatstiftung. Rolf Weilert, F1-EDV GmbH. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  7. ^ a b c Hurlin, Lina (5 July 2019). "20 Mietshäuser Syndikat". Housing for degrowth : principles, models, challenges and opportunities. Anitra Nelson, François Schneider (1st ed.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. pp. 345–360. ISBN 978-1-138-55805-2. OCLC 1043054420.
  8. ^ a b c Dąbrowiecki, Łukasz (31 July 2022). "Germany's Collective Alternative to the Private Housing Swindle". tribunemag.co.uk. Retrieved 13 September 2022.
  9. ^ a b "The Syndikat in operation – Mietshäuser Syndikat". Retrieved 14 September 2022.
  10. ^ Silke Helfrich, David Bollier (2020), Frei, fair und lebendig - die Macht der Commons (in German) (2., unveränderte Auflage ed.), Bielefeld: Transcript, p. 239, ISBN 978-3-8376-5574-2
  11. ^ "The Building Blocks of the Network – Mietshäuser Syndikat". www.syndikat.org. Retrieved 14 September 2022.
  12. ^ "Finanzierung – Mietshäuser Syndikat" (in German). Retrieved 14 September 2022.
  13. ^ Silke Helfrich, David Bollier (2014), Silke Helfrich, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (ed.), "Commons als transformative Kraft. Zur Einführung", Commons. Für eine neue Politik jenseits von Markt und Staat (in German) (2 ed.), Bielefeld: Transcript, pp. 15-23, ISBN 978-3-8376-2835-7
  14. ^ Herbert Klemisch, Moritz Boddenberg (2020), "Selbstorganisation der Verbraucher*innen: Potenziale zur Vermeidung von sozialer Ungleichheit in Bedarfsfeldern des Konsums?", Armutskonsum - Reichtumskonsum: Soziale Ungleichheit und Verbraucherpolitik (in German), Düsseldorf: Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen e.V. Kompetenzzentrum Verbraucherforschung NRW, pp. 79–102, ISBN 978-3-86336-927-9, retrieved 21 April 2021
  15. ^ Margarete Over, Patrick Zimmermann, Lars-Arvid Brischke, Institut für Energie- und Umweltforschung Heidelberg, Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus-Senftenberg (ed.), Wie muss man bauen, um suffizientes Wohnen zu ermöglichen? (PDF) (in German), Cottbus / Heidelberg, p. 3{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  16. ^ Nir Barak (15 April 2020), "Ecological city-zenship", Environmental Politics (in German), vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 479–499, Bibcode:2020EnvPo..29..479B, doi:10.1080/09644016.2019.1660504, ISSN 0964-4016, S2CID 203274180, retrieved 28 May 2021
  17. ^ Raven Musialik (24 March 2016). "Die Häuser denen, die sie nutzen". Futurzwei (in German). FUTURZWEI. Stiftung Zukunftsfähigkeit. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
  18. ^ Judith Vey (1 February 2016), "Crisis protests in Germany, Occupy Wall Street, and Mietshäuser Syndikat: Antinomies of current Marxist- and anarchist-inspired movements and their convergence", Capital & Class (in German), vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 59–74, doi:10.1177/0309816815627389, ISSN 0309-8168, S2CID 56365924
  19. ^ Bettina Barthel (2020), "Legal hacking und seine praktischen Dimensionen am Beispiel des Mietshäuser Syndikats", Zeitschrift für kritik - recht - gesellschaft (in German), no. 3, p. 366, doi:10.33196/juridikum202003036601, ISSN 1019-5394, S2CID 235059299, retrieved 21 April 2021
  20. ^ Ivo Balmer, Tobias Bernet (31 December 2017), "Selbstverwaltet bezahlbar wohnen ? Potentiale und Herausforderungen genossenschaftlicher Wohnprojekte", Wohnraum für alle?!, Urban Studies (in German), transcript Verlag, pp. 256–280, doi:10.14361/9783839437292-017, ISBN 978-3-8394-3729-2, retrieved 21 April 2021
  21. ^ Kenton Card (2020), Derya Özkan, Güldem Baykal Büyüksarac (ed.), "Contradictions of Housing Commons. Between Middle-Class and Anarchist Models in Berlin", Commoning the City. Empirical Perspectives on Urban Ecology, Economics and Ethics (in German), Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 159-176, ISBN 978-0-429-02188-6
  22. ^ "Das kommunale Vorkaufsrecht stärken! Sieben Forderungen des Mietshäuser Syndikat". Stadtbodenstiftung Berlin. 16 December 2020. Retrieved 21 April 2021.
  23. ^ "Direktkredite | Mietshäuser Syndikat" (in German). Retrieved 12 June 2018.
  24. ^ "Wenn ein Projekt scheitert – Mietshäuser Syndikat" (in German). Retrieved 8 September 2022.
  25. ^ Stiftung Warentest (22 January 2015). "Mietshäuser Syndikat - Anlegergeld für selbstverwaltete Mietshäuser – sozial und riskant - Special - Stiftung Warentest" (in German). Retrieved 12 June 2018.
  26. ^ Julius Geiler (19 April 2021). "Zweites Feuer in zwei Wochen in linkem Hausprojekt in Berlin-Spandau". Der Tagesspiegel (in German). Retrieved 21 April 2021.
  27. ^ "Nach schwerer Brandstiftung – Zeuginnen und Zeugen gesucht". Berlin.de. 9 April 2021. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
  28. ^ Frank, Marie (June 2022). "Brandanschlag auf Hausprojekt". Die Tageszeitung: Taz. Retrieved 7 August 2023.
  29. ^ "Wieder versuchte Brandstiftung an linkem Wohnprojekt". 5 June 2019. Retrieved 7 August 2023.
  30. ^ a b c d e "Internationale Projekte – Mietshäuser Syndikat" (in German). Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  31. ^ "Qu'est-ce que le Clip ? – Clip – Réseau de lieux en propriété d'usage" (in French). Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  32. ^ "Geschichte". Genossenschaft Mietshäuser Syndikat (in German). Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  33. ^ "About us". habiTAT. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  34. ^ Sophia Thoma (June 2019), Technische Universität Wien (ed.), Spekulierst du noch oder wohnst du schon? Ein Denkmodell für eine alternative Wohnversorgung in Wien. Diplomarbeit (PDF) (in German), Wien, p. 88{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  35. ^ "Sdílené domy – síť solidárního bydlení". Sdílené domy – síť solidárního bydlení. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  36. ^ "Ontstaan – VrijCoop" (in Dutch). Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  37. ^ "Doe mee / Faq – VrijCoop" (in Dutch). Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  38. ^ Co-op Clusters - Round table report (PDF), 2014, archived from the original (PDF) on 7 April 2017, retrieved 9 September 2022
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47°59′36″N 7°50′27″E / 47.993277°N 7.840812°E / 47.993277; 7.840812

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