In France it can take years to evict people who stop paying rent. So now 90% of all rental contracts have an insurance for non-payments included in the contract.
A few bad apples forced every other tenant to pay more in rent just because politicians decided that squatters had more rights than the owners. And god have mercy on your soul if you decide to take back what is yours when you get tired of waiting for the justice system to do it's job. If you do, you'll be the one the cops will come for, not the squatters.
> now 90% of all rental contracts have an insurance for non-payments included in the contract.
This is interesting. I never knew about it. I am surprised that it has never come up on HN before. In Japan, it is similar, but I don't know the history. (If I had to guess, it is probably related to the destroyed economy after the war.) If you have a "rich uncle" or work for a famous company, they can be your rental contract guarantor, but most people pay for third party insurance. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Mostly, it feels like a regressive tax on the poorest.
You also sometimes need a guarantor and you need a CDI (indefinite work contract) to be able to rent in the first place. If you are on a short term contract (1 year or less) or if you are a student or out of work, then good luck to you.
Then what happens in practice is that the owner will contract an insurance policy via the real estate agency that manages the rental property. As a result of this, in the end if the insurance company deems you to be too high risk, then they won't insure you and the owner will not take the risk to rent his dwelling without it even if they like you and want you to live in their rental.
So what we have is a de-facto rental market that is controlled by a few insurance companies who decide the fate of the tenants. The owner, the real estate agency don't really have much power in terms of decision.
For the owner it makes things easier, they don't really have to think too much. Their rent is guaranteed by the insurance company and for the real estate agency, they can always turn down "undesirable" tenants by claiming that the insurance company rejected their application.
The tenants most of the time have no idea about this stuff.
As you put it, it is a hidden tax on the tenants because the price of the insurance is now baked in the rent that is paid by everyone, good tenants or bad tenants alike. When I was working in RE 11 years ago, the insurance cost something like 2 to 3% of the monthly rent and then another 5 to 7% got paid to the real estate agency managing the rental.
Today, I reckon, after all the inflation from the past few years, most likely 15% of the rent is gone before the owner sees a dime each month. As you can imagine this is not a very good incentive to put your apartment on the market. And that is not even touching on the various rent control policies that have been rolled out in the last few years in certain cities which have exacerbated the rental crisis.
In France it can take years to evict people who stop paying rent. So now 90% of all rental contracts have an insurance for non-payments included in the contract.
A few bad apples forced every other tenant to pay more in rent just because politicians decided that squatters had more rights than the owners. And god have mercy on your soul if you decide to take back what is yours when you get tired of waiting for the justice system to do it's job. If you do, you'll be the one the cops will come for, not the squatters.