As of: February 9, 2024, 1:16 p.m
By: Amy Walker
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This year too, those in need can submit an application for citizens' benefit if they are overwhelmed by heating costs.
But the deadline expires earlier in 2024.
Berlin - With the new citizen's benefit, not only the unemployed will receive money, but also low-income earners and people who need help coping with the cost of living due to their living conditions.
In the wake of the Ukraine crisis and the skyrocketing energy costs, the circle of those affected was expanded again: All people who receive high additional payments for heating costs and can prove that they cannot pay them can apply for a one-off citizen's allowance.
This is a kind of “heating subsidy” from the state.
This regulation will still apply in 2024, as tenants in particular are only now receiving their bills from 2022.
But as the portal
gegen-hartz.de
writes, the deadline for submitting an application was shortened this year.
Citizens' benefit: application period shortened to one month
Last year, applications for a one-off citizen's allowance could be submitted up to three months after the heating bill was due.
So: Anyone who had to have paid their bill by August 31, 2023 could submit an application for citizens' benefit until the end of November 2023 and thus receive the subsidy retroactively.
In 2024, those entitled only have one month left, as the consumer portal reports, citing the Berlin job centers.
Anyone who had to pay their heating bill by the end of January 2024 only has until February 29, 2024 to apply for the heating subsidy.
In the job center, a woman holds an application for citizen's benefit in her hand.
© Jens Kalaene/dpa
According to the
Berliner Zeitung,
the shortening of the application deadline is based on a recommendation from the Labor and Social Committee in the Bundestag from 2022.
Accordingly, the extended deadline in 2023 was an exception that expired again this year.
When asked by the newspaper, the chairman of the Alternative Tenants and Consumer Protection Association, Marcel Eupen, spoke of a “nasty trap” because many people were not aware of the shorter deadline.
“Households that needed the three-month deadline last year to apply for citizens’ benefit now run the risk of forfeiting their entitlement if they do not report to the job center or social welfare office in time,” Eupen continued.