Possible rent usury in almost 50,000 cases. Are you also paying too much?

According to data from a comparison calculator run by the Left, tens of thousands of households in major German cities pay rents that are too high. According to the party, within eleven weeks around 68,500 people nationwide voluntarily entered data into an app that compares the rent with the local rent index. In a good 48,500 cases the reported value was at least 20 percent higher than the local comparative rent, and in a good 27,500 cases it was even 50 percent too high.

According to the Economic Crimes Act, it can be an administrative offense if rents for living spaces are more than 20 percent higher than usual comparable values ​​and the landlord takes advantage of the fact that there are hardly any offers on the market. According to case law, values ​​that are more than 50 percent excessive can, under certain conditions, constitute a criminal offense.

In Berlin alone, the Left’s so-called rent usury app recorded almost 32,000 users and rents that were too high a good 22,700 times, of which around 13,500 cases were by more than 50 percent. The app is also offered in Hamburg, Leipzig, Freiburg, Munich, Dortmund, Erfurt and Hanover. Users found excessive rents everywhere, albeit to varying degrees.

In Hamburg, around 13,000 people voluntarily entered their data; According to the Left, they found rents to be 39 percent too high on average. In Munich, the app only received just under 6,400 reports. On average, the rent was 63 percent too high.

The Left has chosen affordable housing as the central issue for the federal election campaign. Your rental expert Caren Lay said the numbers from the app were more drastic than expected. “This is on a scale that I would not have thought possible.” According to her, rents that are too high not only affect private individuals, but also the municipalities, which bear housing costs for recipients of citizens’ benefit.

However, there is an enforcement problem, Lay said. In the event of rent extortion, the municipalities are responsible for imposing fines. According to the Left, of the approximately 68,000 users of the app, around 2,400 have sent their suspicions of rent extortion to their responsible housing authorities. In these cases, the rent was reportedly 67 percent above the rent index.