The ministries involved have agreed on the details of a phased plan for the planned distribution of CO2 costs in the building sector between tenants and landlords.

According to information from Sunday, the Federal Ministry of Economics, Federal Building and Federal Ministry of Justice agreed that the share for landlords and tenants would be based on the energy balance of the respective building.

The calculation is carried out in ten stages for residential buildings.

Since the beginning of 2021, a price has also been charged in the building sector for CO2 emissions caused by the combustion of fossil fuels.

This should make switching to climate-friendly alternatives more attractive.

A price of 30 euros per tonne of CO2 currently applies, and this will gradually increase to up to 55 euros in 2025.

Currently, landlords can pass on the full costs to tenants.

Ten-step model determines landlord's share

In future there will be a ten-step model: the worse the building's energy balance, the higher the share to be borne by the landlord.

The determination is made via the heating bill.

For apartments with a particularly poor energy balance, i.e. emissions of more than 52 kilograms per square meter per year, landlords should bear 90 percent and tenants 10 percent of the CO2 costs.

However, if the building at least meets the very efficient standard (EH 55), the landlords no longer have to bear any CO2 costs.

There should be exceptions for cases in which no energetic renovation is possible, for example because of monument protection.

In commercial premises, the costs are divided equally

The 50-50 rule applies to non-residential buildings, such as commercial premises.

In the future, the phased model should also apply to non-residential buildings, as the three ministries announced.

However, the necessary data for the calculation was still missing.

The regulation is scheduled to come into force at the beginning of 2023.

Federal Building Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) spoke of a “fair” division that would “specifically relieve the burden” on millions of tenants.

Landlords were thus given an incentive to invest in energy-related renovations and tenants remained motivated to reduce their own energy consumption.