Will you pay less rent from 2023?
Landlords have to pay part of the additional costs
Created: 01/12/2022, 15:45
By: Andrea Stettner
A new law is intended to relieve many tenants of ancillary costs from 2023.
The reason for this lies in the CO2 tax when heating with natural gas or oil.
Despite rising energy prices and a whopping inflation, the year 2023 will also bring financial relief.
At least some tenants.
As the Bundestag decided at the beginning of November, in many cases landlords will in future have to contribute to the CO2 tax for heating.
Previously, this cost item was borne solely by the tenants.
The amount of the landlord's contribution depends on how climate-friendly the house is built - the less climate-friendly, the higher the costs for the landlord will be in the future.
From 2023, landlords will have to pay part of the additional costs.
The reason for this is the CO2 tax.
© IMAGO/Sascha Steinach
New tiered model: landlords participate in the CO2 price
Since 2021, everyone who heats with gas or oil has had to pay an additional fee.
This should help to reduce climate-damaging carbon dioxide emissions.
This was previously left to the tenants alone.
The CO2 emissions not only depend on the heating behavior, but also on the insulation of the house or the windows.
This is now changing, because from January 2023 the landlords will also be asked to pay: The costs are to be divided between tenants and landlords according to a tiered model.
Landlords should pay up to 95 percent of the CO2 price - depending on the climate friendliness of the property.
However, if emissions are very low, tenants still have to bear the costs themselves, reports the German Press Agency (dpa).
Construction Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) explains: “Now we have a fair model that also makes the landlords responsible.
In this way, both sides are making a contribution to climate protection.”
Landlords would be encouraged to invest in energy efficiency, while tenants would be encouraged to heat more sparingly.
However, there are exceptions, such as listed buildings, where landlords cannot easily renovate.
Here landlords often have to contribute less or not at all to the fee.
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Families should save up to 100 euros on additional costs
The comparison
portal Check24
uses a sample calculation to show how the new regulation could affect tenants financially.
A family with gas heating and a consumption of 20,000 kilowatt hours per year in the most climate-friendly house would have to pay a CO2 price of 128.40 euros.
If, on the other hand, the family lives in a house that is particularly harmful to the climate, the tenants only have costs of 6.42 euros.
The landlord would have to take care of the rest.
The family would thus be relieved of 122 euros a year in additional costs.
With oil heating, the same tenants would only have to pay 9.46 euros themselves in a poorly renovated house, and 189.19 euros would be due in a climate-friendly building.
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So landlords now have to determine for each house how climate-friendly their property is, i.e. how many kilograms of CO2 are emitted per year.
The landlords should be given the necessary data for this, according to the dpa.