At the beginning of July, a legal deadline expires, after which television license fees can no longer be paid via the utility bill. Many poor people will then have to bear additional costs.
According to the German Tenants’ Association, the state should pay TV fees to people receiving citizen’s allowance even after the statutory deadline has expired. The job centers should be obliged to do this, demanded Tenants’ Association Federal Director Melanie Weber-Moritz in Berlin. “Every person, whether rich or poor, has the right to information and to unhindered access to it.”
The TV costs – roughly seven to nine euros a month – can only be charged to tenants via the additional costs until the end of June, when a legal deadline expires and the collective contracts that have been common practice for landlords are then prohibited. Instead, tenants must conclude contracts themselves or they can voluntarily take part in a collective contract, the costs of which, however, cannot be paid via the additional costs bill.
The previous practice is known as apportionability or ancillary costs privilege, and it was positive for certain people receiving citizen’s allowance: if they were obliged as tenants to pay these ancillary costs, the state took over. But in future this will no longer be the case – and this is now causing concern for the tenants’ association.
Source: Stern
