rack-renting

Charging excessive rent

Rack-renting is the practice of charging excessive rent—as much as the market will bear or more.

The term comes from the rack, an instrument of torture, suggesting tenants are stretched to their financial limits.

A rack-rent extracts maximum payment regardless of fairness or the tenant's ability to pay.

Historically associated with exploitative landlords, especially in Ireland: Absentee landlords were notorious for rack-renting their tenants.

exploitation

extortion

Obtaining through threats

gougingExploitative overpricing
landlordismProperty-owner dominance over tenants
tenantOne who rents property

oppression · excessive · profiteering · predatory · unaffordable · squeeze · usury · rapacious · absentee · slumlord

historical

Ireland

North Atlantic island republic

famineSevere food shortage
evictionForced departure from rental
titheTenth for clergy

peasant · agrarian · colonial · estate · middleman · clearances · subdivision · potato · dispossession · absenteeism

housing

lease

Temporary use contract

affordableReasonably priced
tenancyRenter's period of residence
dwellingPlace of residence

accommodation · property · occupancy · apartment · letting · gentrification · displacement · speculation · overcrowding · substandard

Categories

rentingtenant, landlord, lease, lease agreement, deposit
peasant revoltuprising, uprisings, revolt, riot, riots

Opposites

rent pricing fairness

rack-rentingaffordable housing

Shelter scaled to earnings

rent control · subsidized housing · fair rent · social housing · rent stabilization

landlord ethics/intent

rack-rentingtenant protection

Safeguards for rental occupants

land reform · housing security · cooperative housing

Family

rack, rent, racking, racked, racks, renting, rented, rents, renter

Familiarity: Top 1,000,000
Profile: Timeless · Negative · Rated G