Affordable housing: Cabinet decides on tighter rent controls

According to government sources, the Federal Cabinet has decided to extend the rent cap until the end of 2029. This is intended to prevent this instrument for tenant protection from no longer being available after December 31, 2025. So far, however, it does not look as if the bill passed on Wednesday will find a majority in the Bundestag.

The FDP says it does not want to take part. The Union would only like to address the question of how a new version of the rent cap still makes sense for a transitional period after the new election planned for February 23rd.

Where the rent cap introduced in 2015 applies, the rent when re-letting existing apartments may only be increased to the level of the local reference rent plus ten percent. The law authorizes state governments to designate areas with tight housing markets in which rent control applies. However, new buildings from October 1, 2014 are exempt from rent control, as is the first rental of an apartment after extensive modernization. The draft that the cabinet has now approved provides for a change here. In the future, the exception will only apply to apartments that are used and rented for the first time after October 1, 2019.

A case for the Federal Constitutional Court?

The president of the umbrella association of the housing industry, Axel Gedaschko, considers the draft that has now been passed to be unconstitutional. He says: “Unlike the draft bill of the former Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann, the Federal Cabinet’s draft will not stand before the Federal Constitutional Court.” He justified this with the intended extension until 2029 instead of the previously planned until the end of 2028, the postponement of the exceptions for new buildings by five years and the waiver of the increased requirements for the justification requested by Buschmann (FDP). tense housing markets.

“The high rents in cities are a big problem for tenants,” said the legal policy spokesman for the Union parliamentary group, Günter Krings (CDU). In the event of participation in government after the election, the Union would therefore like to do “everything possible to achieve an expansion of the housing supply, but also to quickly examine the form in which a new version of the rent cap makes sense for a transitional period”. Since the current rent cap does not expire until the end of 2025, a newly elected Bundestag still has enough time to decide on it.

The developments in rents are “dramatic,” says Bernhard Daldrup (SPD). He therefore appeals to the Union not to leave tenants in the country out in the cold. The German Tenants’ Association (DMB) called on the parliamentary groups in the Bundestag to agree.

Federal Justice Minister Volker Wissing (independent) said that tenants and landlords need planning security as soon as possible about how the rent cap will proceed. “I think an extension until 2029 is right,” says the former FDP politician. His former party is against it. “Further tightening of tenancy law would be poison for urgently needed investments in housing construction and would further exacerbate the shortage,” said the housing policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Daniel Föst.