My Dad, God rest his soul, was Old School and thought there was no better way to insure the future than a monthly income via renting. He bought a piece of land , almost 4 acres and we build our house on the south side. On the north side, we built a triplex and a small warehouse and another warehouse was built on the west side (Zoning is not something very cared for in Venezuela).
Socialism being Socialism even in Soft European form, there were Renter protection Laws in the country which mean it could take you up to 6 months kick somebody out. It was a pain in the ass, but the promise of a final date made things bearable.
Enter full fledged Socialism/Communism under Chavez. Suddenly some people felt they did not need to pay rent because reasons and evictions started to multiply. The media back then, still intoxicated with the allure of a Revolutionary leader that was actually for the people, started to publish and play sad stories of families being evicted by heartless landlords and how the government should step in.
And it did. A new Renter’s Law was passed giving the renter 6 months of grace to challenge in court the eviction notice without having to pay one cent of rent. If not challenged during that time, the renter could apply and be giving an almost automatic extension of another six months. During that time, the landlord could not do a thing other than show up to fix the property and could not address the renter or be accused of harassment.
Of course, what had to happen, did happen: Nobody got evicted because the notoriously slow courts suddenly got flooded by eviction cases and the sheer number just made that court stop till resources could be brought which happened never. The second thing that happened was that construction of new housing screeched to a halt unless you were building high end and very pricey houses and condos for sale. Most of the middle class construction in Venezuela was for rentals, but nobody was going to build a damned thing if by the second month he could lose his investment. Construction in unfinished apartment buildings stopped. Why bother to put more money into housing construction? You could drive anywhere and see those concrete skeletons all over. Those who were finished were never allowed to be rented but went automatically for sell, but unfortunately people’s income had begun to depreciate and simply did not have the money to buy and mortgage interests were criminally high as always. Some builders simply welded shut the doors, abandoned the projects and went into bankruptcy.
Housing became scarce and on its way to impossible to find.
We managed to sell 2 out of our three units, but thanks to mom being stubborn and not selling everything when shit started to go downhill and inflation, we got but a minimal fraction of what was worth before Chavez, barely enough to move mom and her things to the US with us and that was not much and while you still can buy dollars in the open market. The last renter “decided to buy” his unit but stopped paying rent till he got the money to pay for it. I eventually told mom to consider the apartment lost and be glad the Venezuelan government could not come after her for unpaid taxes.
For all intents and purposes, we lost everything we spent decades building because Socialism and Renter’s “rights”. Trying to be righteous and popular simply condemned people to built shacks with tin roofs and no water or electricity and shit in buckets. Some tried to squat into abandoned buildings, but were expelled by the government themselves who had other ideas about what to do with them, such as keeping them for their own profit.
The most painful part was our family home: we sold it at a what would be considered a decent price, but by then she was not allowed to exchange it for any foreign currency. The money simply went into our bank account and sat there not knowing that in a few months, it would lose 70% of its value and in a years time, it would be only worth one thousandth of what was the day it was deposited because of Socialist Hyper Inflation.
So when the incestuous bitch Ilhan Omar tweets this crap, I know damned well the consequences of her proposed stupidity.
PS: Wasn’t rent cancelled in Somalia?
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