Akelius

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Akelius

Basic information
Founded	1994
Type	Private
Industry	Real estate
Official website	https://www.akelius.com/

Akelius is a corporate landlord that owns 20,000 rental apartments in major cities such as New York, Boston, Washington, Austin, Toronto, Montreal, Québec City, Ottawa, Paris and London.

Incidents

Exploitative Rent Policies Under Berlin's Rent Cap (2020-2021)

In 2020, the company evaded Berlin's short-term rent cap by including "shadow rents" in leases—secret provisions requesting payment of as much as five times the advertised rent, retroactively payable if the law were to be annulled. When Germany's constitutional court ruled the rent cap null and void in 2021, Akelius started to recover these overpayments from renters, fueling indignation. The Berlin government intervened with a €10 million interest-free loan fund to aid affected tenants from being evicted.

UN Human Rights Violations Accusations (2020)

The United Nations Human Rights Council called out Akelius for systemic "renovictions"—coercive renovations to remove tenants and circumvent rent control. The UN Special Rapporteur on housing reported cases where residents were forced to live in uninhabitable conditions for months, with no running water or heating, while Akelius undertook upscale overhauls to justify outrageous rent increases. Investigations also showed the company targeted low-income communities, disproportionately impacting vulnerable populations.