Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck, Federal Minister of Construction Klara Geywitz and Federal Minister of Justice Dr Marco Buschmann have agreed on a fair sharing of CO2 costs between landlords and tenants for both residential and non-residential buildings.
Since 2021, Germany has levied a price for carbon dioxide emissions. Currently, a price of 30 euros per tonne of CO2 emitted when burning heating and motor fuels applies. It will gradually increase to up to 55 euros in 2025.
In the buildings sector, the CO2 price is intended to motivate landlords to promote energy-efficient refurbishment of their buildings and tenants to use energy sparingly. Currently, landlords can pass on the additional costs for the CO2 price in full to their tenants. With the new distribution according to the graduated model for residential buildings, the federal government wants to give more weight to the climate policy incentive effect.
For residential buildings, cost sharing is based on the energy balance of the property. This is intended to create incentives precisely where the potential is particularly great and refurbishment is feasible. At the same time, the phased model is also well applicable for private landlords who only rent out one property.
The worse the energy balance of the respective building, the higher the share of costs to be borne by the landlord. With the graduated model, the percentage cost sharing is linked to the annual CO2 emissions of the rented building per square metre.
In the case of flats with a particularly poor energy balance, landlords bear 90 per cent and tenants ten per cent of the CO2 costs. However, if the building meets at least the very efficient standard (EH 55), landlords no longer have to bear CO2 costs. There may be exceptions in the case of listed buildings or in areas protected by law. For non-residential buildings, there is initially a 50:50 split, but the graduated model is to be applied to non-residential buildings in the future. The regulation is to come into force on January 1st, 2023.
(Photo: © Alexa's photos, Pixabay)
