Lease law: tenants should be better protected from January

German tenants should be better protected starting in January from extreme increases in rent. The corresponding changes in the rental decided on Thursday the Bundestag. The opposition has notably criticized the fact that the brake on leasing in metropolitan areas is already expiring in two years.

Justice Minister Katarina Barley (SPD) said before the vote in Berlin: "With the law on the protection of tenants, we protect tenants from eviction and limit the financial consequences of modernization" . The new law prevents people from "cleaning" their homes.

In the future, after modernization, homeowners will only be able to transfer their costs to a limited extent: modernization costs will increase from eleven to eight per cent. At the same time, the rent should not increase by more than three euros per square meter of living space for six years as a result of the modernization. For apartments whose rent is less than seven euros per square meter, it can even be increased by two euros. The factions of the coalition decided this last rule only Tuesday.

Rental price brake is tight

Targeted over-modernization will in the future be qualified as an administrative offense; the fine can go up to 100,000 euros.

The rental price brake, introduced in 2015, will be tightened with the change. The most important for tenants located in areas where housing is restricted is the future obligation of the landlord to provide information on why he is asking what rent – for example, due to a rate of high rent or a complete renovation.

Barley announced Thursday that he wanted to develop a law to reform rent rates. Rent levels determine the average arithmetic rent. "We will extend the period of review of local comparative rent," she told the Funke media group. The "explosive" increase in rents in the recent past is not expected to dominate the calculation of rent levels. Instead, the long-term evolution of rents should become the benchmark.