New law: this changes for German tenants

reThe grand coalition has agreed on the next lease law reform. The big blow in the fight against rising housing prices was missing. From the tenant's point of view, there are still improvements. So, it should be in the modernization of rental housing in the future, a price cap. And with the rental price brake, a little more transparency is created. Owners will have stricter information obligations in the future.

Thursday, the Bundestag wants to adopt the amendment. This is the first major change in rental law for almost four years. "The Tenant Protection Act can come into effect as planned on January 1, 2019," said Federal Justice Minister Katarina Barley (SPD). "The situation, particularly in urban areas, is serious, young families and single-parent families have particular difficulty finding affordable housing, and rent should not be a risk of poverty in Germany," Orley said.

In essence, the amendments correspond to the decisions of the coalition agreement between the CDU, the CSU and the SPD. In this document, the parties had notably identified the rental housing modernization as one of the main price drivers and had promised a ceiling. The SPD had meanwhile caused new vortex requests. So there should be some kind of "rent limitation" and the rent brake across the entire federal territory to extend. But it will not work.

Stronger price cap for cheap apartments

As of January, only 8% instead of the previous 11% of modernization costs can be allocated to the annual rent. In addition, there is an absolute limit of three euros per square meter for a period of six years.

For cheaper apartments, the price cap is stricter: if the net cold rent is less than seven euros per square meter, the owner must respect a ceiling of two euros per square meter. Contrary to the initial forecasts, these rules will be applicable throughout Germany in the future.

The coalition agreement envisaged limiting the reduction of the modernization allocation to areas experiencing housing shortages. "But we see that there could also be unacceptable difficulties for tenants in rural areas," said Jan-Marco Luczak, spokesman for the Housing Union faction, in an interview with WELT. In structurally weak areas, the economic capacity of tenants and landlords is limited.

"The most disadvantaged groups with mostly low rents are better protected," said Michael Gross, rapporteur of the SPD parliamentary group on the Legal Affairs Committee. It calculates: If the rent of an apartment of 60 square meters is six euros per square meter and therefore 360 ​​euros monthly, the rent can only increase by two euros per square meter of modernization and thus reach 480 euros per month for six years, no matter how high are the actual modernization costs.

Protest of real estate

"This is an important success of the SPD parliamentary group for all tenants because of apartment groups such as Vonovia, with rents of modernization of more than 40% according to the official law, could claim, "said Gross.

On the other hand, the real estate sector protested: "The idea seems to have to punish the owners who rent their apartments cheaper.It is absurd," said Andreas Mattner, chairman of the central real estate committee of ZIA.

However, in the opinion of the expert Luczak Union, the chapter on modernization is not yet complete. "We need a more energy-efficient renovation for climate protection in existing buildings.In particular, smallholders are still cautious here because of the high costs."

As announced, there will be a simplified modernization process in the future. The owners can apply measures up to 10,000 euros without having to justify each individual cost to the tenants. "In addition, the state must also take more financial resources to support homeowners.Here, especially, countries are in demand," says Luczak.

Even with the rental price brake, there are small improvements from the tenant's point of view. The regulation is essentially based on the fact that the rent of new leases can only in certain cases exceed by more than 10% the local comparative rent, which the owner must justify.

Mieterbund sees no change in rental price brake

But there are exceptions. If the pre-rent has already exceeded this limit, the landlord may require that the new tenant actually rents too high. The same is true for the major renovations carried out over the last three years. These two facts are not always obvious to the tenants, until now, they could not see at the conclusion of the contract if their owner for legitimate reasons did not stick to the price increase.

In the future, the owners should therefore voluntarily indicate, at the time of the conclusion of the contract, whether they are availing themselves of one of these exceptions. If they "miss" that, they will have two years to catch up with the tenants.

"This means in simple terms that the rental price brake is changing in the result as well as in nothing," says the German Tenants Association (DMB). "It will always be true that tenants who enter into a new lease do not know at the outset if their landlord will use one of the exceptions – basically, they must now wait two years to be certain and know they can to make a complaint for rent that is too high. "

Even with this complaint, nothing changes. Tenants must justify why they find rent too high. Luczak, the union's expert, believes that this is appropriate because they will now have better information at the conclusion of the contract: "I think it's reasonable that tenants continue to file complaints in the future, c & nbsp; That is to say why they feel the rent is too high. "If the landlord has invoked an exception to the rent brake, the tenant must refer to this exception in his complaint. "A blush in the blue, so the simple badertion that the rent is too high is not enough," said Luczak.

"We need additional measures"

It will not stay with this unique lease reform. Politicians and market experts have long known that the main reference size of all rent level disputes must also be reformed: rent levels. These are collected according to completely different standards in cities and municipalities. Sometimes not at all.

"We need more action," Justice Minister Barley said Tuesday. It will then draft a law to reform the Mietspiegel. "Rent levels determine the average arithmetic rent, and at home, what rent increase the landlord is allowed, and reliable rents are an essential tool for affordable housing," said Barley.

Meanwhile, soaring prices in the real estate market continue almost unabated. This is demonstrated by a recent study as an example for Berlin. The capital is still very popular with investors, as shown by the "Emerging Trends in Real Estate" audit firm and PwC consulting in cooperation with the Urban Land Institute.

The 818 real estate experts surveyed as part of the study are expecting further rent increases in Berlin, ahead of all other cities. "Prices in all German cities have risen sharply, Berlin is also considered by many investors to be too expensive, but the market must be ready for this to continue," said Susanne Eickermann-Riepe, Partner and Director. real estate at PwC Germany.