As of: 29.11.2018 09:37

The search for a home is an obstacle course in many places. And rents continue to rise. Minister Barley wants to impose a new rent index. In addition, the Bundestag wants to improve the rental price brake.

Federal Justice Minister Katarina Barley wants to prevent a sharp increase in rents in popular residential areas by new regulations.

"We will extend the review period to the local comparative rent," the Social Democrat told the spark media group's newspapers. "This will prevent a steep increase in local comparative rent."

The federal government had already decided on the project at its September residential summit. According to this, the data from the last six years will be used for the calculation of rent rates instead of only four to date.

Fixed rental price

Today, the Bundestag votes on another law on the protection of tenants, which aims to improve the controversial brake of the price of the rent on the following points:

  • transparency: Requires an owner more than the local rent plus ten percent, then he must inform the tenant before the contract, why he is allowed. As new construction or renovations are usually obvious, this rule is aimed primarily at the fact that it must disclose the Vormiete – and the status of one year before the end of the previous lease.
  • complaint: If the tenant thinks his landlord is asking too much, he will be more likely to object to the future. If, for example, the landlord justified the increase of the lease by a complete modernization, the tenant can refer to it, according to the Ministry of Justice in his complaint. If the owner does not provide justification, could therefore also formulate a simple complaint, that is to say without justification.
  • modernization costs: Until now, homeowners have been allowed to transfer eleven percent costs to tenants, up from eight percent in the future nationwide.
  • Cape limit: The rent can increase in Germany after modernization within six years to three euros per square meter. A special arrangement applies to relatively cheap rents. With a cold net rent of less than seven euros per square meter, the monthly rent can increase by up to two euros per year.
  • damage: If real estate owners advertise or implement a modernization to get rid of the tenant – politicians also speak of "demodernization" – the tenant is entitled to compensation. This can happen, for example, if a year after the announcement of the modernization, nothing has happened if the landlord announces a doubled rent or if the construction work is unnecessarily distressing for tenants.
  • punishment: Such modernization or its "abusive" announcement is now considered an administrative offense and may be punishable by a fine of up to 100,000 euros.

Deutschlandfunk reported on this subject on November 29, 2018 at 06:12.

In the beginning