Status: 10.11.2022 8:53 a.m
Too late, too complicated and not very transparent: The German Tenants’ Association is critical of the planned one-off payment for tenants. Today the Bundestag is voting on the measure that is part of the gas price brake.
Today the Bundestag wants to vote on the planned one-off payment for gas and district heating customers. However, the tenants’ association sees tenants at a disadvantage when it comes to emergency aid. It is enormously important, said the President of the German Tenants’ Association, Lukas Siebenkotten, the dpa news agency. “But tenants benefit from this far too late and are disadvantaged by the law.” For most tenants, the December relief from 2022 will only have an effect in the course of 2023 as part of the ancillary cost billing.
Relief immediately or only when the ancillary costs are settled?
Siebenkotten demanded that the gas price brake should be brought forward with an immediate adjustment of the advance payments. “If that is not feasible, gas and district heating customers must be relieved of a one-off payment in January and February.” In order to close a relief gap, the gas price brake should be brought forward to January, demanded the President of Haus & Grund, Kai Warnecke.
However, he defended the subsequent effect of the December aid. Because the service charge bill will be high for many tenants, taxpayers’ help should also arrive at this point. “The original idea that the one-time payment in December should be broken down by the landlords to the tenants and paid out to the tenants would have ended in chaos.” It would not have been possible to implement it in practice.
Tenant Association President Siebenkotten also criticized the fact that the regulations were far too complicated and hardly transparent, especially for tenants. “In this way, only a fraction of the tenants find out how high their individual relief contribution from the federal government actually is.”
Special rule for tenants
The emergency aid for gas and district heating customers, worth billions, is intended as a bridging measure until the gas price brake takes effect. This should take effect from March, but the federal government is examining retrospective relief as of February 1st. The billing or crediting of the December relief should take place via the gas and district heating suppliers.
However, there is a special rule for tenants and members of homeowners’ associations: They should receive the subsidy as part of their annual heating bill for 2022, which will be prepared in 2023. Because many landlords have not yet adjusted the monthly advance payment to the increased gas and energy prices, according to the federal government. For them, the higher costs would only arrive later.
However, tenants who have already made increased advance payments for operating costs since spring 2022 are to be released from the obligation to pay the increased amount in December. In the case of new contracts, for example, it can be assumed that discounts adjusted to the current energy costs have already been agreed.