Rental price brake extended: protection against usury in Saxony until 2027!

Rental price brake extended: protection against usury in Saxony until 2027!

Rental prices in Saxony, especially in the large cities of Leipzig and Dresden, have been on a steep upward trend for years. In order to counteract the increasing costs for living space, the Saxon state government has made an adaptation of the cap limit. This was reduced from 20 to 15 percent and has been in Dresden since 2014 and from 2018 in Leipzig. This regulation has now been extended by two years until June 2027 to protect the tenants in the region and to protect them from dramatic rent increases. Without this measure, the rents in existing tenancy would have increased by up to 20 percent from July 2023, reports MDR .

The capping limit states that rents in existing tenancy can increase by a maximum of 15 percent within three years. On the other hand, new rentals are subject to the rental price brake, which has been in force for Leipzig and Dresden since May 2022. This regulates that the rent in new rentals may be a maximum of 10 percent above the local comparison rent, which should be a decisive relief for many tenants. If this regulation does not end, it expires at the end of 2023. In order to report excessively high rents, the party's rental application app was launched in Leipzig, which has already generated around 800 reports on exorbitant rents.

The rental price brake in detail

What exactly is behind the rental price brake? It has the goal of limiting the rental amount in new or reimbursement if affordable living space is endangered. In the course of a amendment to tenancy law, which has been in the whole of Germany since July 2015, Saxony was also included in the list of regions in which the rental price brake is used. The rule states that the rent may not exceed the local comparison rent by more than 10 percent. Exceptions here are new buildings and extensively modernized apartments that are not affected by this rule, such as Bauen-wohnen.de

In Saxony, the rent limitation regulations came into force on July 13, 2022, and the cities of Dresden and Leipzig were set as areas with tense housing markets. In order to ensure that rents do not increase over the justifiable level, various exceptions are set, such as rentals from preliminations or according to modernizations, as in § 556e and § 556f BGB.

A look at the situation in Saxony

The rising rental prices have put many tenants in unrest in recent years. The state government's legal measures are a step in the right direction, but it remains to be seen how effective they will be when stabilizing the rental prices. The discussion about affordable living space will also play an important role in the coming years.