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Rental houses in Munich: Approval from tenant associations
Photo: Sven Simon / imago images
Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann has rejected demands from the SPD for a reform of index rents.
“In the past few years, tenants with index leases have mostly been better off than tenants with normal leases,” Buschmann told the “Rheinische Post”.
»Because the cost of living has risen much more slowly than comparable rents.
And with index rental contracts, an adjustment of the rent to the local comparative rent is excluded," said the FDP politician.
»That's why tenants' associations in particular have been positive about index rents until recently.
Now, for the first time in a long time, things have turned around.
I have doubts as to whether that warrants immediate legislative intervention,” Buschmann said.
"But of course we will keep an eye on further developments," said the minister.
The SPD in particular has recently been calling for index rents to be reformed in order to prevent skyrocketing rent increases due to the link to high inflation.
»In the future, index rents should no longer be linked to the inflation rate, but to the development of net cold rents.
We urgently call on Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann to take action here and stop the high rent increases by changing the law," said SPD tenancy law expert Zanda Martens of the "Rheinische Post".
Recently, the red-green Hamburg Senate decided on a Federal Council initiative to limit the increase in index rents.
It stipulates that index rents can be increased by a maximum of 3.5 percent per year even if the cost of living increases significantly.
In the case of indexed rental contracts, the development of rents is based on the consumer price index of the Federal Statistical Office.
mik/dpa-AFX
