Vienna rents often twice the legal limit in older buildings

Rents in old buildings in Vienna are far higher than the law permits, according to the city's housing counselor Kathrin Gaal who was working with a tenant's rights advocate Christian Bartok. They presented the city with a study carried out over the past 40 months that found that rents being charged in building classified as old are often twice the amount that regulations allow.

These include all residential buildings that received occupancy permits before 1945. The current limit is €5.81 per square meter per month, whereas the average net rents according to this recent study are closer to €10.20. The Vienna Housing Council has asked the federal government for a change in the tenancy law to make surcharges more transparent and to restrict time-limited lease options.