Affordable living: Brake for rental jumps should apply by the end of 2029

Tenants in many German cities should be able to protect longer from strong price jumps when moving into a new apartment. The Federal Cabinet launched a draft for a continuation of the statutory rental price brake until December 31, 2029. Otherwise it would expire at the end of this year. Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig (SPD) said there was no time to lose. It also plans stricter regulations for automatic rent increases and for more transparency at ancillary costs.

Hubig said: “People must have affordable living space.” Therefore, it is a question of social justice that rents do not increase above average and find people in tense locations. Union and SPD had agreed to extend the rental price brake that had been in force since 2015 in the coalition agreement. The cabinet decided to formulate a draft that the coalition factions wanted to bring to the Bundestag.

Instrument for tense markets

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.

Problems are also increasingly available for average earners

The price brake “moderately slowed down” the rental increase in areas with tense markets – and in a targeted manner where there are strong climbs of more than 3.9 percent annually, the ministry explains in the draft. However, the rental apartment market is still tense, especially in metropolitan areas. High “reclaiming rents” are a financial challenge for people with low incomes, but increasingly also for average earners and families with children. And this means that people are displaced from their traditional residential quarters.

Tenant association calls for subsequent sharpening

The German Tenants’ Association welcomed that the brake should now be extended immediately as promised. President Lukas Siebenkotten called it “regrettable and incomprehensible” that the remaining exceptions should not be deleted. The date of the date in 2014 must be updated. “Apartments that were built over ten years ago are no longer new buildings.” It is no longer conveyable. The Bundestag should therefore improve this.

House owners see weaknesses

The owner association Haus & Grund, on the other hand, called the extension of the brake a mistake. To benefit from it, you first have to find a new apartment. But that is exactly the problem in the tense housing markets. The brake does not seem precisely. “The rental chief doctor benefits as well as the rental nurse,” complained President Kai Warnecke. Support for the housing benefit is much fairer.

Last extension of the price brake?

The application of the instrument was last extended in some countries. In North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, 57 instead of 18 municipalities are now considered tense housing markets. The Union construction expert Jan-Marco Luczak called it well that people with the extension are now quickly given security. At the same time, the CDU politician emphasized: “The rental price brake is and remains an interim solution until the apartment markets have calmed down again.” It cannot be extended as often as possible.

Rent with automatic increases in sight

Hubig emphasized that the extension was a first step towards better protection for tenants. Further are planned in the coalition agreement. “We want to create more transparency in the additional costs,” said the minister. For contracts with index rents – i.e. rent increases according to the inflation rate – stricter rules are said to come. Furnished apartments are also in sight. “It cannot be that a landlord places two chairs in an empty apartment and thinks that it can then request significantly higher prices.”

The left-wing construction expert Caren Lay called for the deletion of exceptions to the price brake for modernizations and older new buildings. “Above all, the numerous violations must be sanctioned so that the rental price brake is not simply avoided as before.” The tenant association called for an end to the practice that providers are by braking by short -term rentals. The owners’ association Haus & Grund called to boost construction more – with more building land, faster permits and lower costs.