Lecture about the developments on the timber market by Gerd Ebner

The BUND and the ifeu - Institute for Energy and Environmental Research have produced various studies on building issues in the last 10 years, including "13 measures against energy waste in the boiler room".

This study now deals with the core issue of cost allocation for energy modernisation in rented buildings. As early as 2012, BUND, the German Tenants' Association (Deutscher Mieterbund) and the German League for Nature Conservation (Deutscher Naturschutzring) presented the basic idea of the so-called "one-third model". Costs and benefits should be shared between tenants, landlords and the state in as balanced a way as possible. This was and is linked to the premise of achieving a rent-neutral apportionment. In addition, disputes about the amount of the apportionment and the division according to maintenance and modernisation costs should be avoided or circumvented.

This study presents the basic features of the one-third model, but includes other factors that play a role in the modernisation levy, such as rent losses, property taxes or residual values in a specially developed calculation model. The calculations also take into account the different situations of private landlords and housing associations as well as different housing market situations such as growing, shrinking and constant housing markets.

Based on the model calculations, the following changes in tenancy law are proposed to implement the ideas of the one-third model:

Targeted support measures

• Increase the subsidy for efficiency houses 55 to 40 %.
• Increase the grant for individual measures to 30 %.
• Elimination of the EH 85, 100 and 115 efficiency house incentives.
• Abolition of subsidies for fossil heating systems.

hardship interception

• If an energy modernisation causes unreasonable hardship for tenants, the resulting rent increase is paid from public funds.

Amount of the modernisation levy

• Subsidies no longer have to be deducted from the investment sum to be apportioned, but benefit the landlords directly.
• The modernisation levy will fall from 8 % to up to 1.5 %. Since the reference value is changed, this corresponds to approx. 3 % in the current system.

The changes can only be introduced as a package. This is the only way to achieve the desired effect, namely to meet the climate protection targets and to balance the costs between the actors.

The basic idea of the one-third model, a fairer distribution of costs for all parties, can be applied to all cases examined. The desired result, the resolution of the apparent contradiction between climate protection and social security, is achieved for the various actors. Although public budgets share more than one third of the modernisation costs, they benefit to a greater extent from the economic advantages of energy efficiency.

BUND expects that an amendment to the tenancy law will implement the one-third model and that this can be supported by all participating agencies and associations. It would be a concrete contribution to integrate and implement the much-vaunted social component in climate protection measures. In this way, a higher level of acceptance for the urgently needed energy modernisation will be achieved - the rental housing stock will thus make its indispensable contribution to climate protection. The preservation of the building fabric will benefit just as much as the quality of living, if the living comfort is increased through proper energy modernisation.

To the short report

Source: News Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland e.V. (BUND), September 2019

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