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Karlsruhe (dpa) - The rent brake is intended to protect tenants in particularly sought-after residential areas from usurious rents - but several federal states botched the start with incorrect regulations.
The damage is caused by the tenants who had relied on it and now have to live permanently with an inflated rent.
Do the countries have to take responsibility for the financial disadvantages?
The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe will decide on this on Thursday in a pilot process against the state of Hesse.
(Az. III ZR 25/20)
Since June 2015, the state governments have been able to designate “areas with tight housing markets”.
The principle there is that when new tenants move in, landlords may add a maximum of ten percent to the local comparative rent.
However, there are exceptions, for example for newly built or modernized apartments.
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All rental price control regulations must contain a justification - and that is often the problem.
In the meantime, courts in Bavaria, Hamburg, Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse, Brandenburg and Lower Saxony have declared the original regulations to be ineffective.
They had to be reissued.
However, this no longer helps tenants retrospectively, because the rent brake only applies when moving in.
The legal service provider Conny GmbH (formerly Wenigermiete.de) now wants to help millions of tenants to make repayments with a basic judgment.
In the lower courts, however, the lawsuit on behalf of two Frankfurt tenants was unsuccessful.
When they moved in at the beginning of 2017, they agreed to a basic rent of 11.50 euros per square meter for their 67 square meter apartment.
The customary local rate at the time was 7.45 euros per square meter.
Because of the ineffective rent brake, they had no chance in court.
At the hearing on January 21st, the BGH judges did not show any tendency.
The German Tenants' Association would appreciate it if the Senate affirmed the state's liability.
"If the state officially issues an ordinance and announces it in the official gazette, the citizen must be able to trust that it is also valid," President Lukas Siebenkotten said after the negotiation.
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© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210128-99-200401 / 2
Announcement by the BGH
Judgment of the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court of February 13, 2020
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Judgment of the LG Frankfurt from March 25, 2019
BGH judgment on the Hessian ordinance of July 17, 2019
Conny GmbH in January 2020 about the procedure
BVerfG ruling on the rent control of July 18, 2019
Rent brake in the law, § 556d BGB
Info sheet from the Berlin tenants' association on the rent brake
Overview of the tenants' association with designated areas
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Topic page of the Ministry of Justice on tenant protection
Tenants' Association on the dispute