Relief for tenants
Landlords have to contribute to CO2 costs
4/3/2022, 6:04 p.m
In addition to the increased energy prices, tenants also have to pay for a climate tax on heating costs. This is going to change. The traffic light ministries agree that landlords will have to bear part of the CO2 costs – but only from 2023.
The responsible federal ministries have agreed on sharing the CO2 costs between landlords and tenants. This was agreed at the weekend between Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck, Federal Minister of Construction Klara Geywitz and Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann, the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced. “A fair division” of the carbon dioxide costs between landlords and tenants was achieved. The regulation should come into force in January 2023.
Since 2021, a price has been charged for carbon dioxide emissions in Germany. Landlords can currently pass the additional costs for the CO2 price on to their tenants in full. According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the CO2 price has not yet had the desired steering effect on climate policy. The federal government now wants to remedy this with the new allocation based on a tiered model for residential buildings. Accordingly, based on the specific CO2 emissions of the rented building, the CO2 costs produced will in future be allocated proportionately between tenants and landlords according to the areas of responsibility.
The worse the energy balance of the building in question, the higher the share of costs that the landlord has to bear. With the step-by-step model, the percentage of cost sharing by landlords and tenants is linked to the annual CO2 emissions of the rented building per square meter. In the case of commercial premises, the 50-50 split, which was already specified as an option in the coalition agreement, applies. If they come to an agreement, the rental parties can agree on compensation, for example over the rental costs.
Tenants’ association complains about a lack of “fingertip feeling”
In the future, the stage model should also be applied to non-residential buildings. Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann emphasized: “For non-residential buildings, we rely very heavily on freedom of contract.” The solution found there primarily serves to avoid bureaucracy.
The tenants’ association criticized the fact that the regulations should not take effect until 2023. “It shows very little tact that tenants have to continue paying the full CO2 price in the year when heating costs explode,” said Lukas Siebenkotten, President of the German Tenants’ Association, to the newspapers of the Funke media group. Instead of relieving tenants, as agreed in the coalition agreement, by the middle of the year at the latest, those who live in poorly renovated buildings will continue to be burdened with high costs. Siebenkotten believes that the introduction of a stage model makes sense, but it is incomprehensible why the landlord does not have to pay the full CO2 price for the stage with the worst energetic condition.