Housing: Bundestag wants to decide rental price brake extension

The rental price brake, which tenants protects against price jumps in tense housing locations, should apply beyond the end of the year. The Bundestag plans to decide on the extension by the end of 2029. The owners’ association Haus und Grund rejects the brake as superfluous. The German Tenants’ Association is fundamentally pleased, but now expects that the black-red federal government will target the numerous exemptions.

The rental price brake applies in areas that determine the respective state government as an area with a tense housing market. If an apartment is re -letted, the rent may be a maximum of ten percent above the local comparison rent at the beginning of the rental. This is the average rent for comparable apartments that can be found in rent index, for example.

Except of the brake are, among other things, newly built apartments that were rented for the first time after October 2014 – and also apartments that are rented again for the first time after a comprehensive modernization.

Ownership association considers brake to be unnecessary

The owner association Haus und Grund considers the brake to be superfluous. “Apartments are overpriced primarily on online placement portals, but only a fraction of the apartments are conveyed,” said President Kai Warnecke of the German Press Agency in Berlin. “Above all, this is a problem for people who are not familiar with a city. Those who are at home there find apartments about friends and acquaintances or turn directly to housing companies.”

For most people, the cold rents are not the problem, but high additional costs for gas, oil and electricity, said Warnecke. He even considers the regulation to be counterproductive. “The rental price brake does not use the tenants, but ensures that there are fewer and worse living space. Leftists lack money for energetic renovation.” This is not socially just because the brake also benefited wealthy tenants.

Tenants’ association welcomes extension

The German Tenants’ Association (DMB) sees it very differently. “People who are looking for apartments in large cities despair,” said DMB President Lukas Siebenkotten from dpa. “As long as the situation on the housing market is as it is, we need the rental price brake. It is good that it is now being extended. Because the countries need time to issue their corresponding regulations.”

Numerous exceptional regulations

“But we absolutely need tightening,” demands Siebenkotten. If it were up to him, all exceptions would be deleted from the brakes except those for new buildings. Here he would advocate a shorter period. At the moment, all apartments are considered new buildings in the sense of the brake, which have been rented for the first time after October 1, 2014 – in their view, a range that is far too long. “That is over ten years. The date would have to be changed around 2023,” he said at the start of the German Tenant’s Day in Rostock-Warnemünde.

“We need effective fines for black sheep,” demands Siebenkotten. “At the moment, landlords have nothing to lose for violations of the rental price brake because they have to pay back the too much rent.” Far too high hurdles apply to the application of a fine regulation from economic criminal law. On the other side, many tenants did not dare to object because they feared trouble with their landlord.

Tenant association: lack of transparency for furnished apartments

“Furnished apartments are a huge problem,” said Siebenkotten. Depending on the area, the rental price brake also grabs this, but it only refers to the basic rent. However, since the rental agreement does not have to be shown which part of the rent is on this and which part on the contract for the furniture, tenants could not understand whether there was a violation of the brakes. “We demand that basic rent and surcharge for furniture have to be shown separately.”

If a modernization costs about a third as much as a new building, the apartment is also excluded from the rental price brake. “You can see that on a large scale at housing construction companies: apartments are renovated and then rented out again at immense prices.”

A major problem from the point of view of the tenant association: If a previous tenant has already paid more than admitted by the rental price brake, the landlord could also request this from his successor. “So if you already had more demanded before the rental price brake came into force than would be permitted after rental price brake,” notes Siebenkotten.

Rent rising in large cities

After an evaluation of the Ministry of Building, living is becoming increasingly expensive despite the rental price brake. According to this, the offer rents in the 14 largest independent cities have increased by almost 50 percent since 2015. Accordingly, Berlin is most affected, where the new rents were more than doubled.

The figures come from the Federal Institute for Building, Urban and Spatial Research (BBSR). You reflect the offer to meet those seeking housing when you are looking for a rental apartment with a living space of 40 to 100 square meters on the Internet. Notices, waiting lists and direct brokerage mediation are not taken into account. The ministry warned that this could distort the data.

What the federal government is still planning

It should not be enough with the extension of the rental price brake. By the end of next year, an expert group is to develop further proposals for tenancy law, including fines in the event of violations of the rental price brake. According to the coalition agreement, greater regulation is planned for index rents that rise in accordance with consumer prices, as well as for furnished and short -term rentals.

Bundestag on the subject of rent regulations in the German Civil Code