The President of the German Tenants’ Association calls for “restriction tools” in view of the threat of rent increases. He is in favor of lowering the cap further.
In view of the threat of rent increases, the tenants’ association is pushing for relief for households.
“We need containment tools. The traffic light coalition must finally implement its announced plan to lower the cap from 15 to 11 percent, »said the President of the German Tenants’ Association (DMB), Lukas Siebenkotten, to the newspapers of the Funke media group. According to the usual leases, the rent can currently rise by a maximum of 20 percent in three years, in cities with a housing shortage by 15 percent. The SPD, Greens and FDP agreed in the coalition agreement to reduce this value to 11 percent.
“Even with that, it would still be far too high,” the tenants’ association president reiterated earlier criticism. The permissible rent increase in tight housing markets should be a maximum of six percent in three years. Siebenkotten fears that large landlords in particular will now use the possible scope for rent increases. He appealed to landlords to seek dialogue with tenants.
In addition to the lowered cap, Siebenkotten is demanding relief through the introduction of a new non-profit housing scheme, which the traffic light coalition had also agreed on. According to Sören Bartol, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Building Ministry, the plans for this are progressing: “The new non-profit housing scheme offers the opportunity to create permanently affordable apartments. We’ve already started working on the concept,” Bartol told the Funke newspapers.
The plans are met with criticism from the Federal Association of German Housing and Real Estate Companies GdW. The “socio-economic orientation of housing policy must be secured in the long term, instead of creating new regulations or a new legal form for companies,” said GdW President Axel Gedaschko. He called for an increase in annual funding for social housing to five billion euros.
