Theology professor sets rent in gold grams: 84 grams annually, 500 dollars deposit

Prof. Dr. Duman, in his statement to DHA, explained that he developed this method to avoid dealing with bad-faith tenants and said the following:

'I THOUGHT THE MOST REASONABLE SYSTEM WOULD BE TO RENT IN GOLD GRAMS'

"When you rent out your house, even if the rent amount you set at the beginning of the year is high for the tenant initially—for example, even if it corresponds to one-fifth of their salary—it drops by half by the end of the year, corresponding to one-tenth. Years ago, when I rented my house to a civil servant for 1,500 liras, their salary was around 7,500 liras. While the rent remained at 1,500 for a year, our civil servant friend's salary reached approximately 12,000 liras with the raises in January and July. Thus, the rent became one-eighth of their salary. When the government announced a 25 percent rent increase that year, our rent remained at 1,800 liras. Under normal conditions, while one-fifth of 35,000 liras would be 6,500-7,000 liras, the rent stayed at 2,500 liras and you could not increase it. When the government ended the 25 percent increase cap, you had to increase your rent by 300 or 400 percent to compensate for your 2-year loss, but that is not possible either. I thought it appropriate to set the rent in a way that would correspond to one-fifth of the tenant's salary. I thought my tenant would also find this appropriate. However, in this case, I would constantly have to track how much my tenant's salary is, which is not ethical. Instead, I thought of a system where the tenant would not be a victim and my rights would not be violated. I thought the most reasonable system would be to rent in gold grams," he said.

'LAWS ARE COMPLETELY AGAINST LANDLORDS'

Stating that he decided to fix the rent at 7 grams of gold, which corresponds to 19,000 liras, Duman said, "On the 15th of every month, the rent should be determined by multiplying 7 grams of gold by whatever the price of a gram of gold is in the Grand Bazaar. This way, I will not have a monthly loss due to inflation. Of course, I acknowledge that this might look a bit negative for tenants. As a way to solve this; so that the tenant is not confused and we don't deal with calculations, I concluded that if we fix the rent at 19,000 or 20,000 liras, it would be fairer to make the annual increase based on 7 grams of gold when the time comes. Thus, I saw that even if my monthly rent erodes against annual inflation, there would be a rent increase at the end of the year that would at least compensate for what I lost within that year. I also thought that it would be possible to protect myself from the negative effects of the inflation figures announced by the government in this way. Otherwise, I am not thinking of renting out my house. Because the laws regarding rent are completely against landlords; tenants can victimize landlords by renting houses even if they own their own homes," he expressed.

REAL ESTATE CHAMBER PRESIDENT AKÇAM: TO DRIVE UP RENT PRICES

Hakan Akçam, President of the Ankara All Real Estate Agents Chamber (ATEM), said, "A colleague of ours who saw the sign on the window of a rental property in our Ankara Altındağ district contacted me. Based on this, I called the landlord and asked how much rent he wanted. The landlord stated, 'I want a rent payment equivalent to 7 grams of gold.' I spoke to him like a normal citizen. He also said he did not want tradespeople or those engaged in commerce. It is obvious that citizens are already having a hard time keeping up with housing prices in this environment. We are witnessing such different requests from landlords, and we are saddened. But of course, it's not the case that every landlord does this. We cannot put them all in the same category. Unfortunately, some such bad-faith landlords take the matter in different directions and apply various methods to increase the annual raise or the rent price by finding different formulas," he said.

News Source: 12punto