Wednesday December 16, 2020
Criticism of the opposition
Cabinet improves rent indexes
Rent indexes are an important tool for determining and comparing some of the costs of living. However, their limited expressiveness is repeatedly criticized. The cabinet has now agreed on clearer rules. For the Greens and the Left, the project does not go far enough – the FDP too far.
For rent index, clearer legal requirements should apply in the future. The federal cabinet decided on corresponding rules. Rent indexes are used to determine the local comparative rent. In this way, rent increases are justified and permissible rents are determined when moving to an area with a rent brake. Recently there had often been criticism of the informative value of rent indexes.
Little changes in the requirements for so-called simple rent indexes, but like qualified rent indexes they will have to be published in the future. For qualified rent index, additional quality criteria apply in terms of data basis or methodology. In addition, tenants and landlords are to be obliged to provide the authorities with information about the size of the apartment.
In a legal dispute about rent increases, it would no longer have to be proven in future that a rent index is meaningful – rather, the opposite would have to be proven in a qualified rent index. Qualified rent indexes should be revised after three years and recreated after five years. The Bundestag must approve the rent index reform law. The Federal Council must approve the rent index ordinance.
The German Tenants' Association welcomed the new regulations in principle. But President Lukas Siebenkotten demanded: "Since a legally secure rent index is of elementary importance for larger communities, all municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants should be obliged to draw up a rent index." Otherwise, the rent brake will come to nothing in the event of a re-letting. In addition, the federal and state governments would have to ensure that municipalities receive financial support in drawing up rent indexes.
The same demands made the green housing expert Chris Kühn and warned: "Unfortunately, it has not been ruled out that landlords can justify rent increases in cases without a rent index with just three comparable apartments from their own portfolio. The left complained, among other things, that the rent index could be attacked as unscientific in court in the future. The FDP, however, criticized that the government was tightening "the thumbscrews of the owners". Rent indexes are being misused as a regulatory instrument, and more apartments are needed.
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