Stefanie Hubig, Germany’s Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection, announced measures to shield tenants from rising costs as part of the discussion over the proposed heating law. “We are working hard to translate the key points of the new Building Modernisation Act into concrete legislation” Hubig told the “Rheinische Post” on Saturday. “The law will explicitly stand for tenant protection” she added. “More than half of the people in our country live in rented accommodation. They must be shielded from excessive ancillary costs”. She stressed that tenants should not bear the burden of climbing energy prices alone, warning that heating “must not become a cost trap”.
The draft act proposes to eliminate the current requirement that new buildings use at least 65 percent renewable energy sources for heating. Instead, new oil- and gas-fired systems would be mandated to incorporate a growing share of biogas or synthetic fuels. Critics fear this could undermine climate protection and impose extra costs on renters, who have no say in the choice of heating systems and for whom biogas and synthetic fuels are noticeably more expensive than fossil fuels.
The federal government plans to submit a draft of the Building Modernisation Act to the cabinet before Easter. Concurrently, tenant‑protection provisions will be codified together with the heating novelties in the Civil Code (BGB).
