High inflation is no reason for rent above rent index – Building and Living

September 9, 2024
Ruby J. Jane
cafenews

A rent increase above the relevant rent index? According to a court decision, this cannot be justified by inflation.

Munich (dpa/tmn) – Good news for tenants: A so-called cut-off date surcharge based on increased inflation is not permitted. The legal portal anwaltsauskunft.de provides information on this decision by the Munich I Regional Court (AZ: 14 S 3692/24).

In this specific case, a landlord had demanded a rent increase that went beyond the rent adjustment according to the 2023 rent index. Her argument: there had been high inflation since the data for the rent index was collected. In her opinion, this justified a cut-off date surcharge.

Consumer prices say nothing about rent

However, both the district and regional courts rejected this. A surcharge could therefore not be justified by the increase in the consumer price index. This is not suitable for making concrete statements about the development of apartment rents. In addition, at just over three percent, there are no exceptional increases in the comparative rent.

To explain: A reference date surcharge on the rent index values is intended for the case where there is an unusual increase in the local comparative rent between the reference date of the rent index and the receipt of the rent increase.

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