SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert is pushing for the Federal Building Ministry’s plans for more affordable housing to be implemented quickly.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin In view of the increasing proportion of overpriced furnished apartments and index rents, the SPD wants to enforce stricter tenancy law: “The sentence “The market regulates it” is correct in this respect – but it regulates it systematically to the detriment of the tenants. The SPD is not ready to accept that,” SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert told the Tagesspiegel.
“Landlords must be obliged to transparently disclose both the net cold rent and the furnishing surcharge,” said Kühnert. In addition, the furniture surcharge must be capped. According to a study by the Oxford Economics research institute commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Justice, 27 percent of all advertisements in Germany now refer to furnished apartments. The offer, which is mainly used by low-income earners, is growing, especially in large cities and student cities.
“The fact that people with low incomes have to switch to comparatively expensive furnished apartments is a serious grievance,” said Zanda Martens, the SPD parliamentary group’s rental policy rapporteur in the Bundestag. She also wants the rules for rentals “for temporary use”, in which the rental price brake can be circumvented, to be implemented more strictly.
Objection came from the FDP. “Instead of always just trying to regulate problems away, the SPD should finally consistently address the causes,” said the construction and housing policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Daniel Föst. Far too little new living space is being created in Germany, and building is more expensive than ever.
When evaluating the advertisements, the study authors from Oxford Economics found that fluctuation in furnished apartments had increased in recent years. “So it could well be that the landlords of furnished living space have reacted to the introduction of the rental price brake by trying to rent only for temporary use because this form of rental does not fall under the rental price brake,” it said. The Ministry of Justice said that the investigation did not provide any evidence of systematic conversion of empty apartments into furnished rental apartments after the introduction of the rent control.
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