Everyone agrees: rental price brake does not work as it should. Now Justice Minister Katarina Barley (SPD) has drafted a bill that is supposed to put a stop to soaring rents. The proposals are hardly different from those already agreed in coalition agreement. Neverless, union is criticised – on one hand, because Socialists have passed draft to media, on or hand, because Christian Democrats are dissatisfied with content of paper.
According to draft, landlord will have to give much more clear information about why he is asking for an unusual high rent. Even before a lease is signed, landlord should inform interested party why his rent is higher than ten percent above local rental level. Such reasons may be new construction, modernisation or an already higher rent. In future, tenants would be better able to assess wher landlord is holding rental price brake. The new regulation would probably also have a deterrent effect on owners and property administrations.
The Union, however, criticises this general obligation to provide information. The Conservatives want landlords to provide unsolicited information only if pre-rent was already ten percent higher than local comparison rent. This was shared by deputy legal policy spokesman of Union Bundestag group, Jan-Marco Luczak. "That federal minister now makes a general information obligation and in future landlords must give all-inclusive information about height and reason of requested rent unsolicited, shoots far beyond target."
In this form, law will hardly come throughAnor point in draft: When a landlord renovates his apartment, he should in future only be allowed to transfer costs to tenant to eight instead of eleven percent. Luczak criticized that Barley wanted to introduce nationwide and not only in areas with housing shortages, where rental price brake already applies today.
The chances are bad that Minister of Justice, barley, can bring law into present form. It requires agreement of coalition partner. Even in previous legislature, an amendment to rent price brake on resistance of CDU and CSU had failed, so that new coalition treaty could only agree on a minimal compromise. In this context, it is now to be understood why SPD has passed bill to media, even though it has not yet been voted on with union. The message is probably: look here, we want more, but Union does not let us.
Date Of Update: 07 June 2018, 12:02
