The federal government wants to better protect single people who take responsibility for each other – such as seniors who live together. Justice Minister Buschmann has now drawn up the key points for a law. It should come in 2025.
Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann gave further details about the planned “community of responsibility”. The aim is to provide better legal protection for people who take responsibility for each other, but do not have a relationship in the classic sense.
The key points for the reform are ready and he wants to introduce a draft law to the cabinet in the fall, Buschmann told the newspapers of the Funke media group. The law could come into force in 2025 – significantly later than originally planned. The target group is communities of two to six people who, for example, live together and help each other in an emergency, but do not want to get married.
Right to information in the event of a medical emergency
The FDP politician cited single parents who want to support each other or single seniors who live together in a shared apartment as examples. “They’re not a couple, they don’t want to get married. They want to help each other, especially in an emergency.”
The “community of responsibility” should be notarized and, in Buschmann’s words, make “a lot easier.” This involves things such as the right to information from doctors or other representation issues. “I think that’s attractive – especially for people who actually prefer not to deal with sensitive issues such as representation in the event of illness or need for care.”
Buschmann sees the advantage over individual powers of attorney, which have previously been used to settle such questions, in the fact that you can “do everything in one go” and “put together exactly the right model at the notary.” “The community of responsibility also has symbolic added value,” said the FDP politician. “Whoever enters into it gives a social relationship a structure and a positive name.”
No “marriage light”
However, the “community of responsibility” is not a “marriage light,” explained the minister. It will have no impact on the parent-child relationship, there will be no tax relief, nor will there be any consequences under inheritance law or maintenance obligations. However, anyone who wanted could regulate the equalization of assets after the end of a “community of responsibility”.
The SPD, Greens and FDP had enshrined the project in their coalition agreement in 2021. In February 2022, the Ministry of Justice responded to a parliamentary question from the Union as to why the “responsibility community” was necessary: “Assumption of responsibility is already possible through contractual arrangements between two or more people. However, the conclusion of such individual contracts is viewed by those affected as bureaucratic and perceived as time-consuming and is therefore usually omitted.”