Image: PHOTONEWS.AT/GEORGES SCHNEIDER (APA)
The latter stuck to it: A brake was the “more sensible solution,” said the parliamentary club. The ÖVP proposal will be checked. The SPÖ still wanted a rent freeze.
According to the People’s Party’s new proposal, an additional 200 million euros should be made available through housing subsidies, ÖVP MP Andreas Ottenschläger told APA. The grants should be distributed across the federal states and based on the income limits. “It is targeted and socially accurate and the money is not distributed according to the watering can principle,” said Ottenschläger.
The spokesman for the Green Club Chairwoman Sigrid Maurer said “on behalf of the Greens” to the APA: “From our point of view, the rental price brake is still the more sensible solution. It relieves the burden every month and dampens inflation. Of course we will follow the new ÖVP proposal immediately check. Time is pressing.”
A solution that takes effect before April 1st must be reached in the finance committee by Thursday at the latest. A request to this effect could be brought in at the last minute. Otherwise, tenants in old buildings are threatened with an 8.6 percent increase in standard rents.
The Greens, at least, recently sought a legally prescribed reduction in the rent increase from 8.6 to initially 3.8 percent. The remainder of the rent increase is scheduled to be postponed to 2024 and 2025. The benchmark rents linked to the development of inflation were already increased by almost 6 percent last year.
The ÖVP also wants to negotiate an improvement in the law for the landlords, who are pushed into a noticeable loss of income if there is a rent brake – more attractive tax depreciation options for climate-friendly thermal renovations. She also wants to relieve buyers and home builders – when buying a property, the first 500,000 euros should be exempt from real estate transfer tax (3.5 percent of the purchase price).
For the Greens, this tax initiative by the ÖVP went too far, as it would also relieve the burden on luxury property buyers. They suggest increasing the real estate transfer tax rate from a purchase price of 1 million euros. This is intended to provide counter-financing for the municipalities that collect this tax.
The SPÖ criticized the federal government for its disunity and the ÖVP in particular. Housing spokeswoman Ruth Becher reiterated the social democratic demand for an immediate rent freeze.
The SPÖ wants to suspend increases for standard, category and freely rented apartments and business premises of SMEs by the end of 2025. After that, rents should be allowed to rise by a maximum of 2 percent annually. Rents were increased by 5.5 percent in the previous year, 8.6 percent will be added on April 1, and 6.5 and 3.5 percent again in 2024 and 2025 according to the inflation forecasts. Within four years, that’s an increase of more than 26 percent.
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