Thousands of builders are affected by the funding freeze.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin After the sudden halt to KfW funding, many house builders can now count on money for their energy-efficient houses. The ministries involved agreed on Tuesday that applications received before the funding stop on January 24 should be processed according to the old criteria. The Ministry of Economics also confirmed this to the Handelsblatt, previously the dpa had reported on it.
The federal government had prematurely stopped funding for energy-efficient buildings in view of a flood of applications and high costs. Applications could only be submitted by January 24 instead of January 31. How to deal with applications that have already been submitted but not yet approved was an open question for a long time.
The funds provided so far by the state development bank KfW are not sufficient for this: 24,000 applications remained open, 4,000 of them from private builders. They should have received up to 18,000 euros from the state for a so-called efficiency house 55 per residential unit.
The state development bank KfW had previously announced that it was working with the federal government on a solution for builders. “The freeze on orders and funding from federal funding for efficient buildings has led to a great deal of disappointment and uncertainty. Rest assured that this is very important to us on the KfW Executive Board,” said Stefan Wintels, who has been head of KfW since October, in Frankfurt on Tuesday. “We are in contact with the relevant ministries and hope that we can offer a solution quickly.”
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According to earlier information from Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens), the program would have reached a volume of 14 billion euros without stopping. At the time of the stop, applications with a volume of 7.2 billion euros were still pending. According to the government, only 1.8 billion euros were available in the budget.
According to the current status, those house builders who still wanted to submit applications after the funding stop and before the end of the month will initially get nothing. However, the federal government is negotiating programs that are intended to replace the previous funding.
More: Comment: The halt to KfW construction funding sends the wrong signals